According to Sharad Agarwal, Chief Meatverse Officer of Cyber Gear and Founder of ONLYwebinars.com, “Opinions on the Metaverse remain a mixed bag. The breakthrough moment for the Metaverse will come in my opinion, when we see some ‘Killer Apps’ becoming mainstream. In parallel the questions relating to human-centric experiences, interoperability, privacy, safety, and ethics need to be tackled. The good news is that we are likely to see some real serious use cases soon, such as ‘Metaverse of Senses’, on-site use of digital twins for collaboration, design work and customer visualisations, use of AR in operating theatres, giving surgeons three-dimensional visualisations during medical procedures, training of manpower in Metaverse, etc.”
It is also interesting to note that Metaverse platforms grew by 15 million users year-over-year in the first quarter of 2023, to 520 million monthly active users (MAUs), according to a report from the analyst firm Metaversed. That includes 149 platforms either live or in development.
Some 120 companies are working on Metaverse technologies, which include digital twin and Internet of Things (IoT) data integration, avatars and identity, interface hardware such as haptics, holography, spatial audio, and augmented reality, according to a report by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Metaverse investment transactions topped $24 billion, with the biggest investments going to Meta Platforms, Epic Games, Infinite Reality, and Roblox Corp., according to S&P Capital IQ Pro.
Financial services firm BlackRock recognizes the metaverse’s disruptive potential and has established an exchange-traded fund (ETF) focused on tech companies with a wide-ranging connection to the Metaverse concept, including Apple and Microsoft, Nvidia and Qualcomm, Ubisoft, and others.
According to a McKinsey report, over $120 billion was invested in Metaverse-related technologies in 2022, more than double the previous year’s investment.
Apple Vision Pro just changed the entire Metaverse game. It’s predicted that eventually, 10% of Apple’s revenue’ will come from Vision Pro. Apple’s entry into this space is crucial to the mainstream adoption of the overall Metaverse, revealing a combination of benefits from an entertainment and media perspective.
The promise of Web3 extends beyond just technological evolution, it heralds a new digital age of empowerment, security, and decentralization.
