The metaverse attracts workers with new tools

During the past few months, Trever Stewart meticulously scanned his media company’s half-acre animation studio and recreated it in the metaverse. Now, he is beginning to invite advertising agency clients into this virtual space for meetings so they can observe how their animated content is created, all from within.

“The metaverse may be a massive failure, but companies like Meta have provided us with the tools to build a new world right now!” says Stewart, who is an associate producer of special projects at Bent Image Lab. “It’s unbelievable.”

“With a headset on, if you hold a mayonnaise jar in your hand, you can actually explore its size and texture,” he explains. For advertisers, the capability to discuss intricate visuals with this level of 3D realism can help them maintain full control over the commercials they are producing.

Three years ago, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg sold a futuristic vision in which office workers would ditch their daily commutes and monotonous Zoom calls to instead wear headsets daily and work in immersive virtual offices in the metaverse.

Formerly known as Facebook, the company introduced its own free app — Horizon Workrooms — that enables employees to virtually gather, with Zuckerberg believing this would become a major use case for VR. Shortly thereafter, he rebranded Facebook as “Meta,” showing his dedication to the metaverse initiative. This led to a surge in interest and experimentation. In 2022, a PwC survey revealed that 51% of US companies were either integrating VR into their strategies or had already done so.

Despite this, many of these endeavors have fallen short, with startups offering virtual collaboration technology failing and major tech companies like Meta and Microsoft scaling back or restructuring.