The concept of the corporate metaverse has been gaining traction in recent years. When the hype around “metaverse” experiences first began to build, many innovators focused on the consumer market and the opportunity for people to experience new digital realms.
But as metaverse technology becomes more accessible and advanced, business leaders are beginning to discover new use cases. The metaverse is beginning to branch out into several segments, from industrial metaverses powered primarily by digital twins, IoT, and XR, to retail metaverses used for marketing, customer service, and revenue generation.
In the future, the growth of enterprise metaverse solutions will be fueled by the evolution of the metaverse as a service platform, artificial intelligence, and extended reality headsets designed for business users.
Here we introduce the corporate metaverse and explain how it can help your company.
What is the Enterprise Metaverse?
The Enterprise Metaverse is essentially a metaverse that opens up opportunities for businesses. It combines various technologies used in the metaverse environment, from extended reality and AI to IoT, to help businesses achieve various goals.
Enterprises can create their own metaverse ecosystems designed for everything from immersive collaboration and remote work to product development and engineering. Compared to consumer metaverses, enterprise metaverses are still in their relative infancy. However, many leading vendors are beginning to recognize the opportunities in this environment.
For example, Meta, known for its Horizon Worlds solution, is now opening up its mixed reality ecosystem to developers around the world, enabling more creators to create metaverse-style experiences for a variety of use cases. Other vendors in the metaverse-as-a-service (MaaS) space are providing enterprise leaders with the low-code tools they need to build metaverse assets for specialized use cases.
The Rise of the Enterprise Metaverse
The metaverse, built specifically for business, is still a work in progress, but the opportunity is starting to develop at an incredible pace: According to a 2023 PWC report, 82% of executives believe the metaverse will be part of their business processes within the next three years.
This makes sense, given that most organizations are already experimenting with the underlying technologies that power the metaverse—e.g., augmented reality, digital twins, artificial intelligence, blockchain—and the emergence of more innovative solutions for connectivity, immersion, and data management makes the metaverse more accessible than ever.
Moreover, not only are companies creating metaverse experiences specifically designed for business users, but augmented reality innovators are also starting to focus more on the enterprise. Apple’s spatial computing headset, for example, is clearly designed with business users in mind.
Meta’s latest Quest 3 headset, featuring advanced mixed reality and spatial computing capabilities, is also tailored specifically to the needs of enterprises.
Enterprise Metaverse: Use Cases and Opportunities
We’re still in the early stages of exploring the potential of the corporate metaverse, but many opportunities are beginning to emerge. The workplace is changing rapidly around the world. Remote and hybrid work is becoming more common, and companies are exploring more ways to use immersive technologies to drive productivity and efficiency.
This means that enterprise metaverse solutions can potentially transform every aspect of the workplace and the way businesses operate. Let’s look at some key use cases.
1. Engineering and Product Development
The industrial metaverse is essentially a “subsection” of the enterprise metaverse environment. It is also one of the fastest-growing segments in this environment, especially with the advent of more advanced IoT solutions, 5G connectivity, and generative AI.
Many pioneering companies are already using digital twins (a key component of the industrial metaverse) to improve engineering and development. Digital twins can help companies with everything from risk management to product development, predictive maintenance, and remote monitoring. The broader metaverse also offers additional opportunities here.
Augmented reality empowers engineers and professionals in the AEC industry to interact with customers, share product demos, and render photorealistic representations of real-world objects. In this environment, the metaverse can drive faster innovation cycles, decentralize production, and enhance immersive product testing strategies.
2. Immersive global customer engagement
Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of the enterprise metaverse is that it allows businesses to expand their global reach and build deeper relationships with their customers. The Internet has already helped businesses overcome diverse geographic environments, but there is still a clear gap between virtual and physical experiences.
Metaverse solutions can bridge this gap by providing interactive, immersive, and three-dimensional experiences at scale. This allows businesses to reach clients and customers around the world and experiment with products and services like never before. Metaverse and augmented reality allow businesses to visit the same digital space as their customers in real time.
Organizations can guide customers through immersive onboarding processes, help resolve common issues remotely, and even provide unique buying experiences for users. Some vendors, like Helpshift, are already making waves in this space. Helpshift’s Metashift platform is specifically designed for customer support in the metaverse, providing a way for businesses to help users shop, interact, and experiment with products wherever they are.
3. Marketing and Sales in the Enterprise Metaverse
Enterprise metaverse technologies, such as augmented reality, are already commonplace in many marketing and sales activities. Companies are already using AR solutions like Snapchat to connect with customers and promote their products. They are also leveraging artificial intelligence to personalize advertising and sales strategies at scale.
In the enterprise metaverse, businesses have the opportunity to create entire marketing events in the virtual world, allowing customers to experiment with products or “try” them before they buy. They can connect sales reps with consumers in the metaverse, or provide support from lifelike avatars powered by generative AI.
Already, companies like Nike and Coca-Cola have launched their own metaverse initiatives for marketing purposes, with great results. The metaverse is transforming marketing and sales initiatives and opening the door to new potential revenue streams.
Now, businesses can increase their sales opportunities by selling NFTs, digital assets, and experiences alongside physical solutions. For example, fashion companies like Gucci have their own collection of NFTs that are sold alongside physical clothing.
4. Employee Onboarding and Training
Rapid technological advancements and skills shortages have made consistent workforce training and upskilling more important in recent years. Unfortunately, hybrid and remote work means that many companies are struggling to provide consistent training experiences. Metaverse and augmented reality technologies offer new opportunities for advanced onboarding and skills development.
The metaverse allows companies to build immersive learning experiences that enhance knowledge retention and engagement, allowing employees to visit virtual versions of real-world environments, experiment with different types of technology, and perform tasks without risk.
The metaverse also opens up many collaborative learning opportunities and the ability to gamify learning experiences. The “education metaverse” is already gaining traction globally, with many companies specializing in solutions specifically designed for upskilling and knowledge development.
As training initiatives evolve with the help of generative AI coaches and new augmented reality solutions, enterprise metaverse training is likely to become more common.
5. Enhanced Enterprise Metaverse Collaboration
Immersive collaboration is one of the most important trends in the enterprise, driven by the rise of metaverse technologies. While many companies are trying to bring more employees back to traditional environments, remote and hybrid work is still the norm.
Needless to say, many companies have field workers to consider when it comes to keeping their teams connected. With the Enterprise Metaverse, companies can create a secondary “virtual office” where everyone can seamlessly share knowledge and collaborate regardless of location.
Augmented reality allows companies to bring teams together in interactive environments, work on projects in real time, and engage on a more “human” level. According to PWC, metaverse experiences can actually increase productivity and collaboration by 30%.
Not only does this improve corporate culture and employee experience, it also reduces overhead costs and minimizes the amount of office space a company must invest in.
Additionally, the enterprise metaverse environment can scale globally, allowing companies to overcome talent shortages by securing talent from diverse regions.
6. More immersive virtual events
The enterprise metaverse will almost certainly revolutionize the way companies organize and manage events and conferences. Many have already begun experimenting with more immersive “hybrid events,” where users can visit a virtual version of the conference venue using augmented reality.
The enterprise metaverse can combine the best of offline and online events into a single platform. With the right technology, businesses can access NFT-based ticketing and registration tools, customizable avatars for digital events, and global networking solutions.
Businesses can create truly interactive experiences that replicate the feeling of being at an event in person, allowing people to interact with product demonstrations or make purchases. Adding virtual elements to an event using the metaverse also removes some of the limitations of standard events.
Businesses can invite unlimited attendees in the metaverse, eliminate the need for travel, and even connect with hosts and speakers who can’t attend in-person conferences.
Looking to the future of the enterprise metaverse
The potential of the enterprise metaverse environment is constantly growing. The opportunities are growing as companies create more scalable metaverse platforms and tools, more accessible resources for business leaders, and more advanced headsets.
In the coming years, we expect to see more organizations investing in metaverse opportunities to enhance their employee training and onboarding, as well as their collaboration, customer service, and marketing strategies. Of course, there are still challenges to overcome.
While AI and innovative technologies are improving accessibility to the metaverse, new risks are always emerging around metaverse governance and data security. For the enterprise metaverse to truly become widespread, each company investing in it will need a unique strategy.
They need to identify use cases that offer the greatest potential for their business, partner with leading platform and hardware vendors, and design policies that help mitigate threats. Adoption of the metaverse may not be straightforward for enterprises, but it can be truly transformational.