September 2, 2021 – Xerox Holdings Corporation has today announced the formation of CareAR, a Xerox company, which consolidates CareAR, Inc., DocuShare and XMPie under a single holding company named ‘CareAR Holdings’. In addition to the new holding company formation, CareAR, which provides an augmented reality (AR) support platform that provides real-time access to expertise for customers, employees, and field workers, also raised USD $10 million in funding, which was provided by ServiceNow. As a result, CareAR has received a USD $700 million post-money valuation.
CareAR will be led by Xerox President and Chief Operations Officer Steve Bandrowczak, who will expand his current role to also serve as CareAR’s Chairman, and Sam Waicberg, the original founder of CareAR, Inc., who will serve as CareAR’s President.
The backbone of the new CareAR platform is the augmented reality technology that Xerox gained through its acquisition of CareAR, Inc. back in February, which is designed to be industry agnostic and integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow’s Field Service Management solution, allowing service technicians to tap into the knowledge of more experienced technicians through live, AR assisted instruction.
Now, by combining DocuShare’s content management system, XMPie’s cross-media platform, and Xerox’s PARC Alto AI artificial intelligence engine, the expanded CareAR service experience platform will help to address some key sustainability and workforce challenges, including:
- Supporting workforces with the visual tools and access to data, while helping to lower the operating costs and greenhouse gas emissions of service providers;
- Helping solve workforce talent issues – primarily associated with a retiring workforce. As the current workforce ages into retirement, service organizations may no longer be able to rely on apprenticeship-based training. CareAR will therefore help companies leverage and optimize experienced employees’ time and allow inexperienced workers to draw on a repository of knowledge curated by CareAR’s predictive AI capabilities;
- Supporting service employers’ sustainability and social responsibility goals by facilitating remote preventative and maintenance-based actions, thereby reducing initial and follow-on technician dispatches.
“Xerox has positioned CareAR to deliver capabilities that service-intensive industries need, with real-time instruction, visual tools and access to data at the tip of any user’s fingertips, all driven by predictive artificial intelligence,” said Xerox Vice Chairman and CEO John Visentin. “By creating a platform that is intuitive to a digitally native workforce, and with investment from ServiceNow, we believe CareAR will define and grow the Service Experience Management category, disrupting industries at a time when it’s needed most.”
John Ball, Senior Vice President of Customer Workflows at ServiceNow, commented: “Our customers have never more urgently needed workflows that deliver greater operational efficiencies, better customer and environmental outcomes, and improved safety.” He added, “Our investment reflects our belief that CareAR has the potential to deliver world-class, enterprise-grade augmented reality. Customers using CareAR’s augmented reality to route work through ServiceNow’s leading workflow platform can better solve problems remotely, speeding resolution times and reducing the need for expensive on-site visits, which also reduces carbon emissions dramatically. Together, we’re delivering powerful enterprise service experiences for the new world of work.”
For more information on CareAR and its augmented reality support platform, please visit the company’s website.
Image credit: CareAR
About the author
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.