The Metaverse Is Not Dead (In Fact, Its Corporate Future Is Bright)

At its beginnings, the metaverse proposed an exciting new concept that until now only existed in science fiction: a virtual world where we could be anyone and anywhere.

We could walk around with wearable devices and interact in a realm overlaid and enhanced by digital graphics, 3D, and other interactive features. There would literally be no limits to what we could do.

But this idea never materialized – at least not quickly enough for the company’s impatient people – and the enthusiasm generated by the project metaverse was almost immediately doused by generative AI.

“People tend to focus on one thing at a time; Generative AI was such a brilliant object, such a disruption, that it became the center of attention,” Gartner analyst Marty Resnick told VentureBeat. “The short-term metaverse seemed a bit disappointing.”

This has led some to say that the metaverse is not only outdated, but “dead.”

But is this really the case? Experts say no: its definition and use cases are simply reinvented beyond the concept of “Everything, everywhere, at once”.

“Stop thinking about it in this context of a virtual world like virtual reality,” Resnick said. “It’s more about new interactions between the physical and digital worlds.”

While Meta – which changed its name to reflect its lofty ambitions and faith in virtual worlds – may have lost 47 billion dollars through its investment in the Metaverse, the Metaverse economy is actually expected to grow to 400 billion dollars by 2030 (compared to $48 billion in 2022) and the technology could generate up to A $5 trillion impact by the end of this decade.

Some predict the Apple Vision Pro — version 1.0 is expected from January — could well revive enthusiasm after a year dominated by AI generation.

In the future, unlike pure virtual reality – where users are immersed in worlds without real rules – the metaverse will increasingly become part of the physical world thanks to augmented reality (AR) and extended reality (XR ), experts predict.

“The biggest opportunity for the metaverse is in the physical world, as opposed to the digital world,” Resnick said.

In the end, it won’t be one or the other; everyone will have their place. “We will go to the virtual world for certain experiences, and the virtual world will come to the physical world for certain experiences,” Resnick predicted.

For businesses, the metaverse of the future can provide opportunities for augmented learning and professional development. For example, users can interact through virtual desktops and participate in collaborative digital onboarding.

Financial giants JP Morgan and Citibanque have already launched this type of onboarding and virtual internships.

“A class of new employees coming in can get to know each other, collaborate and connect very quickly,” Resnick explained.

In this immersive space, for example, companies can present topics like harassment and racism (or other “isms”) in a way that feels more real and doesn’t seem stilted and scripted (as in typical onboarding videos). This can be much more impactful and generate more empathy than traditional training and onboarding materials.

“It feels more like learned experience than something you passively learned or were made aware of,” Deloitte CTO Bill Briggs told VentureBeat. “Retention and recall are simply higher. Your brain stores it in a different place.

The metaverse also has great potential in industrial settings.

According to experts, people can interact with machines to design, build and optimize manufacturing systems. Sensors, AI, XR, VR and digital twin technologies can provide simulations and real-world augmentation in operations, warehousing and logistics.

For example, Briggs said: How can companies improve inventory flow? How can they approach a possible machine repair?

With spatial data and digital overlays, workers can visualize information from numerous systems integrated with “real-time data and real-world controls,” he said. They can then refine the workflow and run hundreds or even thousands of scenarios.

“They may have the ability to adapt to the future of their product and their industry,” Briggs said.

Likewise, the Metaverse can increase human workers. For example, a manager with the ability to see what a specific employee sees through interactive devices can help with sorting. Training can also take place on virtual versions of expensive, dangerous and difficult-to-reproduce equipment.

“The conventional idea of ​​the metaverse was this divorce from reality where we have a digital avatar to come together, to communicate, to frolic,” Briggs said. But the industrial metaverse “harmoniously blends physical and digital.”

He added: “It’s the ability to collapse time and space that’s exciting. »

Technology challenges, social acceptance

However, significant challenges remain before the metaverse can reach its true potential.

To start, VR and spatial computing the technologies just aren’t there yet. Users need headgear and shields that look like “typical glasses that you wear every day, as opposed to big cyberpunk glasses,” Resnick said.

Social buy-in is essential to the metaverse and will happen with the right hardware, he noted.

“If people are embarrassed to wear it, it won’t be accepted,” Resnick said.

Briggs acknowledged that “the idea of ​​walking around with a computer strapped to your face isn’t really appealing.”

Likewise, users want to interact with something that feels real. So graphics and overlays need to be responsive and accurate. Some experts say Description of the universal scene (USD) is poised to standardize and democratize the tools for creating virtual worlds, but it is still in the early stages of adoption.

This lack of digital content poses a bigger challenge than connectivity, devices, sensors and issues of retrofitting new versus brownfield facilities, Briggs argued.

The metaverse needs “photorealistic, physics-based renderings of products, equipment, facilities and operational processes that simply don’t exist in most businesses and industries,” he said. declared. “It’s this gap in the way of creating digital content that spatial computing elements need.”

While AI generation Perhaps – at least temporarily – pushed the metaverse out of the world stage, the two will inevitably grow stronger in the future.

For example, AI generation can help create and improve digital assets, including 3D components.

“I don’t think you can look at them separately,” Resnick said. “They work very well together and will continue to do so. »

He stressed that a combination of technologies would facilitate the “next big thing” – and not alone.

Generation AI and the Metaverse working together will enable “more hyper-personalized environments that can be created and experienced by anyone.” It’s this whole question of democratization.

Reimagine (don’t recreate) the way things were done

There is no doubt that there is a lot of ambition and imagination when it comes to the metaverse, AI, and other evolving cutting-edge technologies.

But, Briggs emphasizes, it is essential that organizations abandon the idea of ​​science fiction and create clear strategies.

“It’s a delicate balance: harnessing enthusiasm without letting it become so ambiguous that you spend a lot of money and time and get an impact and result that is far from tangible,” he said. he declared.

Companies must “link their aspirations to real, meaningful problems and potential improvements.”

By identifying use cases and outcomes, organizations can “fundamentally reimagine” processes and drive ingenuity and creativity. He stressed that the worst-case scenario would be to simply replicate traditional ways of doing things.

As he said: “You enable inefficient processes with technology, you just weaponize inefficiency. »

Ultimately, he emphasized, the metaverse, AI generation and other technologies are evolving in a way that is “more of an evolution than a revolution” and on a more predictable path than people realize. think (even if there are significant breakthroughs in certain areas).

“It’s in the collision between these different technological advances and forces that all of the most exciting use cases occur,” Briggs said. “No technology is the hero of a story. It’s up to all of us to keep this in mind and not be beholden to the way we’ve always thought about the world and done things.