Over the last year, there has been a surge in interest in the metaverse. Gartner, a market research firm, predicts that by 2026, 25% of all people will have spent at least one hour per day in the metaverse. According to the company, this could be for work, shopping, education, or entertainment purposes.
“From attending virtual classrooms to buying digital land and constructing virtual homes, these activities are currently being conducted in separate environments. Eventually, they will take place in a single environment – the metaverse – with multiple destinations across technologies and experiences,” said Marty Resnick, Research Vice President at Gartner.
Is the metaverse defined? you ask, here’s what Gartner describes it as, a collective virtual shared space formed by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. It is device-independent and accessible through any type of device, from tablets to head-mounted displays.
So, no single vendor will own the metaverse!?
Well, Gartner expects it to have a virtual economy enabled by digital currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Not only that, the metaverse will impact every business that consumers interact with every day.
For employees, enterprises will provide better engagement, collaboration, and connection through immersive workspaces in virtual offices.
Further, for businesses Gartner predicts that by 2026, 30% of the organizations in the world will have products and services ready for the metaverse because they will be able to expand and enhance their business models in unprecedented ways by moving from a digital business to a metaverse business.
With that, Resnick warns the organizations running bull on metaverse that it is still too early to know which investments will work out in the long run and also advises product managers to take account of the time vested and prepare for metaverse to have the competitive edge.
As previously reported, while the world is still divided on metaverse, an increasing number of technology giants are heavily investing in this space. And so various countries specify their stance on the same as for the UK outlining its own “Online Safety Bill”.
