Metaverse was a hot topic in 2022 and it will continue to be in 2023 and beyond! The wow factor of Metaverse is its promising ability to reimagine digital experience. Following Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, Metaverse emerged as the talk of the town in no time. While Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta primarily focuses on creating hyper-real virtual reality environments, companies like Hyundai, Microsoft, Nvidia, Gucci, and Nike quickly joined the bandwagon to create Metaverse environments to collaborate and work on various digital transformation projects.
Did you know?
According to a Bloomberg Intelligence Report, Metaverse as a tech platform is poised to become a whopping $800 billion market by the end of 2024.
Source: Bloomberg
Clearly, Metaverse is the next big thing in the tech platform landscape attracting the attention of a huge chunk of business and technology leaders from across the world. In another report by Statista, more than 25% of users are willing to spend their time and money on virtual reality and augmented reality tools that allow them to experience the Metaverse.
Estimated Metaverse use case among consumers and businesses worldwide by 2026 (Source: Statista 2022
Here’s a roundup of five key tech trends that we feel will shape up the Metaverse landscape in 2023 and beyond:
#1: Metaverse as a New-Age Marketing Channel
Forward-thinking marketers ought to get their heads into Metaverse. It is not just a passing fad, it is here to stay and is set to become the next big thing in the world of digital transformation.
Parallel Metaverse marketing: Marketers need to understand that natives of Metaverse are Gen-Z and millennials to name few. These generations are hardcore users of popular Metaverse forms such as VR technology and Roblox for example.
Marketers can create immersive marketing experiences that align with real-world experiences. For instance, Stella Artois (AB InBev’s infamous beer brand) collaborated with Zed Run to come up with a Tamagotchi-like digital experience crossed with the famous Kentucky Derby. Since AB InBev is a leading sponsor for sporting events, horse races to be specific, creating a digital platform that supports trading and racing of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) worked great for them.
In fact, giants like JP Morgan, HSBC, Gucci and Nike too have joined the bandwagon, as they have already begun building their own Metaverse presence. As consumers are craving for new and engaging ways of connecting with brands, Metaverse with its innate ability on making one-to-one connections seems a viable concept.
Image Source: Synami Media
Over the next few years, brands will be staking aggressively in Metaverse marketing reimagining the way a brand connects with its consumers.
#2: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) sits at the heart of Metaverse. AI will support exceptional computing capabilities in creating virtual avatars and worlds making the Metaverse more engaging and immersive. In fact, tech giants have already begun investing in next-gen AI services to ramp up their Metaverse capabilities and digital transformation initiatives. For instance, Qualcomm announced $100m funding to support companies and developers to integrate AI and augmented reality (AR) in their Metaverse experiences and platforms. In addition, Meta is working to create unified AI-powered and machine learning (ML) models that can learn and understand diverse capabilities (reading the lips of users for improved speech recognition or tracking policy-breaching social media content/posts by analyzing video, image, and text simultaneously.
Image Source: Towards Data Science
Interestingly, game developers are leveraging AI to ramp up the intelligence level of certain non-playing characters or avatars, whereas social media companies on the other hand are leveraging AI for content privacy, safety, and moderation. The significance of AI is set to skyrocket as advanced technologies such as VR and AR mature over time and more users adopt the Metaverse in the coming years. Lastly, the gigantic volumes of data that will be generated and shared on the Metaverse will undoubtedly require AI for intelligent data analytics.
#3: Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
Augmented reality and virtual reality play a pivotal role in the Metaverse landscape. These advanced technologies have tasted exponential growth lately. In fact, according to an IDC report, the market for AR and VR headsets and gadgets is poised to increase by 60.8% in the next few years.
Offering out-of-the-box features such as natural face expressions and eye tracking, these high-end devices are expected to amplify the Metaverse experience in 2023 and beyond.
“We believe these high-end VR/AR devices will shape up the next computing platform and will become as ubiquitous as tablets and laptops and most importantly, people will use these devices in their everyday lives to experience or access the Metaverse,” said Facebook. (Source: Oculus)
Going beyond these headsets, expect to see novel developments in haptic suits, which are already being used by organizations like SpaceX and NASA to simulate and create Metaverse of extreme space environments to offer immersive and realistic experiences to space explorers.
#4: Internet of Things (IoT)
Digital transformation pundits refer IoT as an integral pillar of the Metaverse ecosystem. The nexus of IoT and Metaverse can help to unlock new and hidden opportunities for businesses and individuals. For instance, IoT would enable virtual spaces to access as well as interact with the real world in a seamless manner whereas the Metaverse would offer 3D user interface for the IoT devices paving way for user-centric Metaverse and IoT experience.
In a smart factory setting, the digital twin of every equipment or machine would have sensors and the data generated from these sensors can be used to explore different environments and provide intelligent feedback.
Simply put, Metaverse requires new platforms and infrastructure to connect and interact with physical devices/machines, hardware, and gadgets to gather data and this is achievable with smart IoT solutions only.
#5: Blockchain & Decentralization
Blockchain plays a crucial role in the development of Metaverse because the future of web i.e. Web 3.0 revolves mainly around decentralization. Thereby, to sustain and nurture a decentralized web ecosystem, future Metaverse platforms ought to be built atop decentralized platforms and blockchain services can help infuse decentralization into Metaverse spaces.
One of the primary advantages of blockchain is that it is ‘trustless’. Yes, with blockchain, there is no need for trust amidst the parties involved in the exchange, since blockchain already addresses the double-spending problem. Thus, a blockchain-powered Metaverse would eliminate cases of identity fraud or theft allowing Metaverse natives or users to participate, contribute, spend and connect in a safe manner. Last but not the least, blockchain would secure digital data, digital art, virtual goods, and content in the Metaverse.
With leading brands like Forever 21, Adidas, and Nike leveraging blockchain technology to develop digital goods that can be traded, worn, and displayed in the Metaverse, we certainly can expect to see interesting developments in blockchain and Metaverse in 2023 and beyond.
Takeaway
Metaverse is huge and is here to stay. It’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds in the near future, as more and more businesses and leaders get their heads into it they realm of this renewed digital world to create hyper-realistic and immersive experiences.
According to Gartner, a quarter of the human population could be spending at least one hour a day in the Metaverse space by 2026. In addition, with the sheer amount of dollars that companies and brands are investing in this evolving tech trend, we can certainly expect Metaverse to take off in 2023 reimagining business models and the way we communicate in the digital world.
