How the Metaverse Can Shape Customer Experience

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The world ‘metaverse’ has been making a lot of buzz, with a growing number of tech enthusiasms and brands highlighting this new landscape critical for the future of online and customer engagement.

The first definition of the metaverse emerged from author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science-fiction novel, “Snow Crash”, which envisioned a 3D virtual world inhabited by avatars of real people.

Nearly three decades later, although definitions of this metaverse are still somewhat varied, experts agree that this new landscape will help bridge the gap between digital and real-world identities.

The “metaverse” is a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you. You’ll be able to hang out with friends, work, play, learn, shop, create and more. Meta (formerly known as Facebook)

Advocates of the metaverse often say that these attributes make up the metaverse:

• Digital avatars to represent the physical appearance for users to express themselves
• Hardware to access the metaverse, often from phone, PC or VR headsets
• Persistent, as the metaverse always exists regardless of time and place
• Immersive as users can achieve a realistic sensory experience in their extended reality
• Highly interoperability as it allows users to use their own virtual items across different experiences on the Metaverse

Why the Metaverse Matters

Here are some facts on why brands should start caring about the metaverse:

• Meta (formerly known as Facebook) spent $10 billion on metaverse technologies in 2021 alone. The company’s efforts include VR hardware, AR wearables, and social VR apps like Horizon.
• Epic Games, a video game and software developer, has invested $1B in metaverse research and development
• 22% of the global population would pay the price to socialise in the metaverse.
• 110.1 million people are expected to use AR, and 65.9 million people are expected to use VR at least once per month by 2023.
• JP Morgan has become…