Imagine a future in which you could hold a seaside chat with your co-workers, take meeting notes while floating around a space station, or teleport from your London office to New York without leaving your house. Do you feel pressed because you have too many meetings today? Why not send your AI-enabled digital twin instead to relieve you of the burden? These are just a few instances of the future work vision offered by "the metaverse," a phrase invented by novelist Neal Stephenson in 1992 to represent a future world of virtual reality. While resisting categorization, the metaverse is commonly viewed as a network of three-dimensional virtual worlds in which individuals may communicate, do commerce, and form social ties using their virtual "avatars." Consider it a virtual reality version of today's internet.
While
the metaverse is still in its infancy in many ways, it has suddenly become huge
business, with technological and gaming heavyweights such as Meta (formerly
Facebook), Microsoft, Epic Games, Roblox, and others all establishing their own
virtual worlds or metaverses. Virtual reality platforms, gaming, machine
learning, blockchain, 3-D graphics, digital currencies, sensors, and (in
certain circumstances) VR-enabled headgear are among the technologies used in the
metaverse.
How
can one enter the metaverse?
Many existing workplace metaverse solutions require only a computer, mouse, and
keyboard keys, but for the complete 3-D surround experience, you'll need to
wear a VR-enabled headgear. However, rapid progress is being made in
computer-generated holography, which eliminates the need for headsets by using
virtual viewing windows that generate holographic displays from computer
images, or by deploying specially designed holographic pods that project people
and images into actual space at events or meetings). Companies like Meta are
also on the cutting edge of haptic (touch) gloves, which allow users to
interact with 3-D virtual objects and feel sensations like movement, texture,
and pressure.
You
may meet friends, raise virtual pets, design virtual fashion items, acquire
virtual real estate, attend events, produce and sell digital art, and earn
money in the metaverse. However, the consequences of the growing metaverse for
the world of work have gotten little attention until lately.
That
is beginning to change. The pandemic's consequences, particularly constraints
on physical meetings and travel, are driving organizations to seek more
realistic, coherent, and interactive distant and hybrid work experiences. The
metaverse appears poised to reshape the world of work in at least four
significant ways: new immersive forms of team collaboration; the emergence of
new digital, AI-enabled colleagues; the acceleration of learning and skill
acquisition through virtualization and gamified technologies; and the eventual
rise of a metaverse economy with entirely new enterprises and work roles.
Like Being There:
Metaverse Teamwork and Collaboration
In
a world of virtual employment, the metaverse promises to deliver new degrees of
social interaction, mobility, and cooperation. NextMeet is an avatar-based
immersive reality platform established in India that focuses on interactive working,
collaboration, and learning solutions. Its objective is to eliminate the
isolation and workforce separation that might occur as a result of remote and
hybrid employment. "With the trend to remote working from the pandemic,
keeping employees engaged has been a key concern for many firms," noted
Pushpak Kypuram, Founder-Director of NextMeet. You can't keep 20 people engaged
in a video call's flat 2-D world; some individuals don't enjoy being on camera;
and you're not imitating a real-life scenario. That is why businesses are
increasingly resorting to metaverse-based systems."
Employee
digital avatars can use NextMeet's immersive platform to enter and exit virtual
offices and meeting rooms in real time, walk up to a virtual help desk, give a
live presentation from the dais, relax with colleagues in a networking lounge,
or roam a conference centre or exhibition using a customizable avatar.
Participants enter the virtual world using their desktop computer or mobile
device, choose or build their avatar, and then traverse the area using keyboard
buttons: arrow keys to walk around, double click to sit on a chair, and so on.
"If you're onboarding 10 new employees and present or give them a PDF
document to promote the organization, they will lose attention after 10 minutes,"
Kypuram says. Instead, we have them go through a 3-D hall or gallery with 20
interactive stations where they can learn about the firm. You make people want
to walk along the virtual corridor rather than read a text."
Other
metaverse start-ups are stressing workplace solutions to combat video meeting
weariness and the social isolation that comes with distant employment.
PixelMax, a UK-based start-up, assists businesses in creating immersive
workspaces that improve team cohesiveness, employee wellbeing, and
collaboration. Their virtual workspaces, which can be accessed through a
web-based system on your computer without the use of headsets, contain features
such as:
"Bump
into" experiences: PixelMax's immersive technology allows you to see
your co-workers’ avatars in real time, making it simpler to stop and converse
with them when you run into them in the virtual office. "Informal and
spontaneous talks account for a big percentage of corporate interactions —
research estimates up to 90% in areas such as R&D — and during the epidemic
we lost a lot of this crucial communication," said Shay O'Carroll,
co-founder of PixelMax, in a recent interview.
Well-being
areas: These are
designated spaces for users all over the world to relax and try something new.
"We have constructed well-being environments intended as woods or
aquariums," Shay O'Carroll stated. They may even be on Mars. These places
may include on-demand content.
Clients
may add services like the ability to order take-out food, books, and other
products within the virtual environment and have them delivered to your actual
location.
Live
status tracking:
Just as in the actual workplace, you can stroll around and receive a 360-degree
view of the office floor, check where colleagues are and who's available, drop
in for a brief conversation, and so on.
According
to Andy Sands, co-founder of PixelMax, the ultimate objective is to be able to
connect several virtual workplaces. It is now constructing a virtual workspace
for a group of 40 major interior design manufacturers based in Manchester,
England. "It's about developing community, having talks, and
interacting." We want worker avatars to be able to go between a
manufacturing world and an interior design world, or to take that avatar and
enjoy a concert in Roblox or Fortnite."
Working
from home may be tough. According to Nuffield Health research, over one-third
of UK remote workers struggle to separate home and work life, with more than a
quarter finding it difficult to turn off after the work day ends. Virtual workplaces
can help to create a greater separation between home and work life by
simulating the experience of stepping into the workplace each day and then
leaving and saying goodbye to colleagues when your job is completed. At the
virtual office, your avatar communicates your position — in a meeting, gone for
lunch, etc. — making it simpler to stay connected to co-workers without feeling
tethered to the computer or mobile.
Better
collaboration and communication will undoubtedly be important drivers of the
virtual workplace, but why stop there? The metaverse introduces aspects of
adventure, spontaneity, and surprise into the office and work environment,
opening up new opportunities for rethinking the office and work environment.
Why not a beach setting, an ocean cruise, or even another globe as a virtual
office site? Gather, a worldwide virtual reality platform that allows people
and businesses to "create their own office," was inspired by this
notion. These fantasy workplaces can range from "The Space-Station Office"
with views of Earth to "The Pirate Office," which includes ocean
vistas, a Captain's Cabin, and a Forecastle Lounge for socializing.
Introduce Your Online
Colleague
Our
work colleagues in the metaverse will be more than just avatars of our
real-world counterparts. We will increasingly be joined by a slew of digital
companions – very realistic, AI-powered, human-like bots. These AI bots will
serve as advisers and helpers in the metaverse, performing much of the heavy
lifting and, in theory, freeing up human labour for more productive,
value-added jobs.
Conversational
AI systems — computers that can read text and audio interactions and speak in
natural language — have made remarkable development in recent years. Such
algorithms are gradually evolving into digital people capable of sensing and
interpreting context, displaying emotions, making human-like gestures, and
making judgments. UneeQ, a worldwide technology platform that focuses on
generating "digital people" capable of working in a wide range of
disciplines and vocations, is one example. Nola, a digital shopping assistant
or concierge for the Noel Leeming stores in New Zealand; Rachel, an always-on
mortgage adviser; and Daniel, a digital double of the UBS Chief Economist who
can meet multiple clients at once to provide personalized wealth management
advice, are among UneeQ's digital workers.
Emotions
are the metaverse's next frontier. SoulMachines, a New Zealand-based
technological start-up, is combining developments in artificial intelligence
(AI) with autonomous animation (such as expression rendering, gaze direction,
and real-time gesturing) to create lifelike, emotionally-responsive digital
humans. Its digital persons are working as cosmetics advisors, a covid health
adviser, real-estate agents, and educational tutors for college candidates,
among other things.
For
people and companies, digital human technology brings up a world of
possibilities. Digital humans are very scalable — they don't stop for coffee —
and can be deployed in several locations at the same time. In the metaverse,
they might be assigned to more monotonous, tedious, or dangerous tasks. Human
employees will increasingly be able to build and develop their own digital co-workers,
who will be personalized and adapted to work alongside them. However, digital
humans will bring risks, such as increased automation and displacement of human
work for lower-skilled workers who have fewer opportunities to move to
alternative roles, or possible erosion of cultural and behavioural norms if
humans become less inhibited in their interactions with digital humans, behaviour
that could then carry over to their interactions with other humans.
Improved Metaverse
Learning
The
metaverse has the potential to revolutionize training and skill development by
substantially shortening the time required to learn and acquire new talents.
AI-enabled digital coaches might be available to help with staff training and
career counselling. Every item in the metaverse, such as a training manual,
machine, or product, might be made interactive, with 3-D displays and
step-by-step "how to" manuals. Virtual reality role-playing and
simulations will become more frequent, allowing worker avatars to learn in
extremely realistic "game play" scenarios like "the high-pressure
sales presentation," "the demanding customer," or "a hard
employee interaction."
Virtual-reality
technology are already being utilized to speed skill development in a variety
of industries: Medivis, a surgical technology company, is using Microsoft's
HoloLens technology to train medical students by interacting with 3-D anatomy
models; Embodied Labs has used 360-degree video to help medical workers
experience the effects of Alzheimer's Disease and age-related audio-visual
impairments, to aid in diagnosis; and manufacturing giant Bosch and Ford Motor
Company have pioneered a VR-training tool, using the Oculus Quest headset, to
train technicians on. Metaverse Learning, a UK-based company, collaborated with
the UK Skills Partnership to develop a series of nine augmented reality training
models for front-line nurses in the UK, using 3-D animation and augmented
reality to test learners' skills in specific scenarios and reinforce best
practices in nursing care.
The
metaverse, with its strong roots in online gaming, can begin to leverage the
promise of gamified learning technologies for easier and quicker skill
development. According to PixelMax's O'Carroll, "the game becomes the
learning activity." We've utilized gamified technologies to teach lab
personnel in the medical field; you'll break out into different groups and then
go to, instance, a virtual PCR testing equipment where you'll go through stages
of learning about how to operate that machine, with your training outcome then
recorded." PixelMax is developing games for the UK's first responder
community - police, fire fighters, medical personnel, and so on — that mix
physical training with immersive gamification, allowing first responders to
repeat training, test alternative techniques, and experience varied outcomes.
According
to research, virtual-world training can provide significant benefits over
traditional instructor or classroom-based training because it allows for more
visual demonstration of concepts (e.g., an engineering design) and work
practices, more opportunity for learning by doing, and overall higher
engagement through immersion in games and problem-solving through
"quest-based" methods. Virtual agents, AI-powered bots that can aid
learners when they get stuck, give nudges, and create scaled tasks, can also be
used in virtual-world learning. The visual and interactive element of
metaverse-based learning is also likely to appeal to autistic persons, who
prefer visual cues over verbal signals. Virtual reality technologies may also
be used to address social anxiety at work, such as by providing realistic yet
safe environments to practice public speaking and meeting interactions.
New Functions in the
Metaverse Economy
The
internet didn't simply provide new methods of working; it also brought a whole
new digital economy, with new businesses, jobs, and positions. As the immersive
3-D economy gains traction over the next decade, so will the metaverse. IMVU,
an avatar-based social network with over 7 million monthly members, has
thousands of producers who create and sell their own virtual items for the
metaverse – designer clothing, furnishings, make-up, music, stickers, and pets
— earning over $7 million in income every month. The "mashers," or
developers, work with the makers to create the fundamental 3-D templates that
others may tweak and tailor as virtual objects. A successful mesh may be
duplicated and sold thousands of times, giving the developer a substantial
profit.
Looking
ahead, much as we are seeing the creation of digital-native organizations
today, we are likely to witness the birth of metaverse-native enterprises,
businesses that are wholly formed and grown within the virtual, 3-D
environment. And, just as the internet created new roles that did not exist 20
years ago, such as digital marketing managers, social media advisors, and
cyber-security professionals, the metaverse will most likely create a slew of
new roles that we can only imagine today: avatar conversation designers,
"holoporting" travel agents to ease mobility across different virtual
worlds, metaverse digital wealth management and asset managers, and so on.
Challenges and Priorities
Despite
its enormous future potential, the metaverse is still in its infancy in many
ways. Significant challenges might hamper its future progress: the
computational infrastructure and power needs for a fully functional metaverse
are formidable, and today's metaverse is made up of disparate virtual worlds
that are not connected in the manner that the original internet was. The
metaverse also presents a tangle of regulatory and HR compliance challenges,
such as possible addiction hazards or undesirable behaviours such as bullying
or harassment in the virtual world, about which there has recently been
significant concern. While many difficulties remain, corporate executives,
policymakers, and human resource professionals should begin with the following
imperatives for effective metaverse collaboration:
Make
skill portability a priority:
Workers will be concerned about skill and qualification portability: "Will
experience or credentials obtained in one virtual environment or company be
applicable in another, or in my real-world life?" Employers, educators,
and training institutions may develop more liquid skills by agreeing on
appropriately approved requirements for metaverse skills, as well as suitable
certification of training providers. This will assist to minimize quality
dilution and provide metaverse-based employees and future employers the
certainty they require.
Be
a true hybrid:
Many organizations had been laggards in the implementation of fully digital
modes of working, as seen by the rush to remote work during the pandemic, with
outmoded regulations, a lack of infrastructure, and a strong separation between
consumer and corporate technology. Enterprises must avoid these blunders in the
metaverse by developing integrated working models from the start that allow
employees to move seamlessly between physical, online, and 3-D virtual working
styles, leveraging metaverse consumer technologies such as avatars, gaming
consoles, VR headsets, and hand-track controllers with haptics and motion
control that map the user's position in the real world into the virtual world.
However, this is merely the beginning. To offer realistic walking experiences,
several businesses are exploring virtual locomotion technology such as leg
attachments and treadmills. NeXT mind decodes neural impulses using ECG
electrodes, allowing users to control items with their minds.
Talk
to your children:
The metaverse will compel businesses to fundamentally reimagine how they think
about training, with a focus on extremely stimulating, immersive,
challenge-based material. Companies should consider the younger generation,
many of whom have grown up in a gaming, 3-D, socially-connected world, while
creating their workplace metaverses. Reverse intergenerational learning, in
which members of the younger generation advise and train their elder
colleagues, has the potential to significantly aid the spread of
metaverse-based working across the workforce.
Keep
it open: Today's
metaverse has grown mainly in an open, decentralized fashion, thanks to the
efforts of millions of developers, gamers, and designers. To fully harness the
power of this democratized movement for their employees, businesses must
actively seek to extend and open up the metaverse, for example, by pursuing
open-source standards and software where possible, and by pushing for
"interoperability" — seamless connections — between different virtual
worlds. Otherwise, as we have seen in the social media sector, huge technological
corporations might swiftly dominate the metaverse, restricting choice and
diminishing the possibility for grass-roots innovation.
The
workplace of the 2020s already looks quite different from what we might have
anticipated only a few years ago: the emergence of remote and hybrid working
has transformed people's expectations about why, where, and how they work. The
tale of workplace development, however, does not end there. While still in its
early stages, the emerging metaverse offers enterprises the opportunity to
rebalance hybrid and remote work, recapturing the spontaneity, interactivity,
and fun of team-based working and learning while maintaining the flexibility,
productivity, and convenience of working from home. However, three things are
certain. First and foremost, the rate of adoption will be critical. With the
majority of the technology and infrastructure in place, large organizations
will need to move quickly to stay up with metaverse innovations and virtual
services, or risk being outflanked in the talent market by more agile
competitors. Second, the metaverse will be successful only if it is used for
employee engagement and experiences rather than for supervision and control.
Third, virtual experiences that employees, particularly younger workers, have
learned to anticipate from technology in their consumer and gaming lives must
be replicated in metaverse-based employment.
Following these concepts, company leaders may begin to conceive and design their own future workplaces.
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