Like artificial intelligence, the metaverse holds limitless potential and imagination. Built on a variety of technologies, including 3D technology, real-time collaboration and decentralized financial instruments, the metaverse promises to transform the way people work, play and interact on the Internet.
People often talk about the metacomverse these days, but it’s always about how big, how fast, how far away, how much impact on the enterprise and so on. So what will the metaverse look like in 2030? What opportunities and challenges will it face? Here are 12 of our main predictions for the metauniverse in 2030.
Prediction 1: How big is the market for the metaverse?
McKinsey predicts that the global metaverse could be as big as $5tn by 2030, equivalent to the GDP of Japan. Other research institutions have fallen far short of this figure in predicting and quantifying the market size of the metacverse. For example, Markets&Markets forecasts that the 3D metaverse technology market for entertainment, media, art, fashion and retail will reach $426.9 billion by 2027. Gartner forecasts that the global enterprise digital twin market will reach $183 billion by 2031. Another research institute has predicted that the market size of the metaverse, including blockchain and decentralized financial technology, will be about $1.5 trillion by 2030.
Why are the numbers so different? The higher numbers McKinsey predicts could represent additional value that the metaverse could unleash elsewhere, just as mobile phones and computers have accelerated the development of home and business-to-business shopping.
Prediction # 2: There will be multiple metauniverses
Grand visions of the metaverse are often based on a single integrated ecosystem, like the Internet. In the near term, there are likely to be more independent metacomes, with separate economies and the ability to move assets and objects between virtual worlds.
Eran Elhanani, co-founder of GamesPad, a gaming and metacomes ecosystem, says most businesses will have a presence in multiple metacomes. Many large companies (Nike, Adidas, Gucci and Tiffany, to name a few) have already dabbled in the metacomes and are likely to appear in multiple metacomes, just as they have branches or stores in many cities.
Prediction 3: The metaverse will change all business processes
The first wave of digital transformation focused on how digital technologies could improve business processes. Metacomverse technology will help companies obtain virtual representations of physical channels, products and operations to improve real-world processes.
Jason Warnke, managing director and global head of digital experiences at IT consultancy Accenture, speculates: “We believe the metacomes will affect every aspect of every business, including how it performs its work, what products it offers, how products are distributed and how businesses operate.” Accenture recently built a digital twin office to collaborate on different workspace layouts, technologies, and processes, significantly reducing rework and errors.
Prediction 4: New security and privacy issues will arise
The adoption of a metaverse is likely to heighten concerns about online security and privacy. “Metacomverse will create new challenges for cybersecurity, privacy rights, regulatory compliance, brand reputation and anti-fraud efforts,” said Emmanuelle Rivet, vice chair and global technology leader at PWC U.S. TMT.
3D capture technology will collect an increasing amount of personal and biometric information that hackers could potentially destroy. And the Deepfake attack will use this expanded data to create increasingly sophisticated attacks that mimic corporate executives, customers, regulators or institutions. Companies must also be on the lookout for new digital or 3D-printed counterfeits. Rivet recommends that companies take a proactive approach to security, starting at the service level, so that no matter where their digital assets go, they are secure.
Prediction # 5: The metaverse will go beyond virtual showrooms
The business side of the Metaverse will use improved 3D modeling software, lidar, and a scalable multi-user environment to develop new approaches to problems. Alex Weishaupl, managing director of experience design at consultancy Protiviti Digital, said: “Metacomes will rapidly move beyond virtual showrooms and explore the use of visualisation combined with real-time data to enhance customer collaboration, risk prediction, fraud or crime detection and other operational functions.”
Companies need to try and experiment with the metacomes because there is currently no playbook to follow, and this will also open the door to the discovery and development of new and valuable niche applications. But Weishaupl cautions against putting all the effort into the metaverse right now, focusing instead on experiments and strategic trials that can generate second – and third-wave ideas.
Prediction # 6: Digital twinning will be used in every industry
Enterprises can use process mining and capture techniques to model business processes. At the same time, improvements in three-dimensional capture technology, such as lidar, are modeling physical assets. Frank Diana, managing partner and futurist at Tata Consulting, predicts that companies can combine these approaches to rebuild their entire organisation in the metacomes, including systems, infrastructure and people using digital twiners.
Digital twinning has emerged in various industries to improve efficiency and better plan and prepare for expected and unexpected situations, such as stress testing manufacturing operations or supply chains. “Digital twinning can do a lot more now,” Diana says. For example, IT departments will be able to identify vulnerabilities in their backup and recovery processes, and managers can explore new layouts, tools and processes to improve productivity and well-being.”
Prediction 7: Customer service and sales roles will shift and be automated
Diana said Metaverse will significantly improve the customer support experience by enabling digital Twin-enabled customer service to virtually sit with consumers and help them solve problems. For example, if a customer is having trouble installing a faucet, they can ask a customer service agent for help. In other scenarios, salespeople can join clients in the metaverse to demonstrate products, or sales and support agents can solve technical problems with the help of a lead engineer.
Prediction 8: Digital first will evolve into metacomverse first
Mobile and social channels help companies test new digital products, services and business models and promote more successful products, services and business models in physical channels. Carina Rolley, director of digital customer experience at IT consultancy Capgemini, says companies are expected to transition from digital first to metacomunion-first.
That means more products will make their way into the virtual world, sometimes even before the physical version goes into production. Businesses will be able to better understand their customers’ needs, co-create new products with them, and share insights with their product development and sales teams.
Prediction # 9: Companies will integrate reality into the meta-universe
The metaverse offers an opportunity to combine geometry, materials and the laws of physics. “This will have a profound impact on product development, engineer collaboration and the way businesses operate,” said Prith Banerjee, chief technology officer of Ansys, a provider of simulation and 3D design software.
Engineers have been bringing physics to the digital world for decades to carry out complex analyses, and more efficient modelling techniques combined with more powerful computers will allow companies to analyse systems on a much larger scale. In addition, enterprises are able to combine digital twinning based on data analytics with digital twinning based on physical entities to create accurate, realistic models of larger assets and collections of assets in real time.
Prediction 10: The metaverse will integrate more technology
Before cloud computing integrated different approaches into new enterprise architectures, vendors offered hosted services and virtual machines. Businesses will be faced with a variety of options, such as exploring metaverse studios, design strategies and experiments, just as cloud computing is having an impact on today’s activities.
Yugal Joshi, partner and business technology leader at research consultancy Everest, predicts that vendors will begin to reshape their existing products and services to become central to their enterprise meta-universe strategy, including commerce, blockchain, distributed infrastructure, digital twinning and customer experience.
Prediction 11: Metaverse gamification will be resisted
Innovation around blockchain and irreplaceable tokens helps create a P2E(Play-to-earn) game, and some metaverse proponents argue that consumer brands may employ more sophisticated strategies to earn points, discounts, miles or other perks. But even at this early stage, the trend has been met with resistance from some press journalists in the games industry, who fear that P2E games will detract from the meta-universe experience.
A survey of 160 gaming industry journalists by public relations agency Big Games Machine on the state of gaming journalism in 2022 found that three-quarters of respondents said they would not cover blockchain games in the next six to 12 months. The gamification of the metacomes is likely to spark a backlash against new forms of digital addiction.
Prediction 12: Robotics innovation will accelerate
Metaverse technology doesn’t just apply to humans, it also applies to robots. Apurva Shah, chief executive of Duality Robotics, a maker of digital twin software simulations, said the metaverse would help engineers create and train smarter robots.
High-fidelity models of real environments, such as factories, warehouses, construction sites and mines, will enable engineers to solve challenges that are too expensive, time-consuming or impractical. Enterprise metacomes will become an important tool for developing increasingly sophisticated robots that are faster, safer, and less costly, but their utility will depend on the standardization and interoperability of assets.
