What The Metaverse Means for the Future of Business
The metaverse is the new immersive internet that builds upon the current rapid development of artificial intelligence and transforms the digital world that we know of into an elevated 3-D interface. This next-level digital world is interactive and completely immersive – the seemingly next logical step after the introduction of the Internet in the 90s. What does this mean for the future of business? Below are a few possibilities that may come about in the upcoming years as the metaverse takes hold of our virtual space:
1. Collaboration will be more effective
We are all now familiar with the online business model and the shift from traditional workplaces to at-home remote work. The metaverse introduces the opportunity to remove the feeling of disconnectedness that arises with remote work and make your home office into a more interactive and engaging environment. 2-D meetings will soon be a thing of the past as metaverse platforms promise a virtual reality where employees’ avatars can work together in different rooms of an office.
2. Employee training will be smoother
With easier status tracking and performance evaluation measurement, the metaverse will make employee training easier to conduct as the business world at large moves to a primarily online model of work. With the 3-D and virtual reality elements interspersed within traditional training activities, retention will be much quicker and the learning curve for new employees will be less steep and difficult to overcome. Engagement will be at an all-time high and recruiting members of a team and delegating tasks per their training performance will hopefully make companies run more efficiently in the age of tense and cutthroat competition in the workforce.
3. Security might be more difficult to ensure
Cybersecurity within the metaverse has already posed concerns as the concept develops. A virtual world is likely to bring hackers and phishing issues to light more frequently, and its foundational use of blockchain is also subject to a lack of security due to its decentralized nature. With the rise of NFT scams recently, it is safe to assume that cyber hackers will use the metaverse to scam and steal identities as avatars will likely need much personal information to operate in the digital 3-D world. Once information about privacy and security are detailed and specified, no one can know for sure the impact it will have on containing important business information and guaranteeing employee security.
4. Productivity will skyrocket
The hope is that the metaverse will make both employee training and collaboration easier and less taxing as the world moves online. With this, comes the possibility of productivity skyrocketing as communication becomes clearer and we are able to send things to each other more efficiently. Of course, it will all come down to the willingness of a company’s management and employees to make such a thing possible, but with an engaging virtual reality to help us get through long days of work, which were previously spent behind a desk, we can hope for a more enthusiastic and productive environment.
What’s to Come:
In recent news, Meta has opened its first in-person store in Burlingame, California called the Meta Store. This interactive retail space allows users to demo Meta’s products and immerse themselves in the new age of technology. It includes samples of VR headsets, AR Ray-Ban glasses, and Portal, the highly intelligent device for video calling. The introduction of this brick-and-mortar store is pivotal in gaining the attention of Zuckerberg’s target audience who are currently largely unaware of what Meta truly aims to do. Gaining the trust of users seems to be Meta’s goal for this and once we are completely aware of its structure and implications for our personal privacy as well as business security, the metaverse might possibly be the new avenue for all things digital.
Despite this, we still currently know very little about just how the metaverse will impact our digital lives going forward, but we can make some interesting predictions about how it might be hugely beneficial to keeping corporate jobs alive. Security is still a very pressing issue even in the 2-D cyberspace that we know of, so we do not know much about how much companies will be able to utilize the metaverse safely. However, as technology continues to grow leaps and bounds past what we ever thought we were capable of, the metaverse might hold some promise for the business world.
