Four Ways the Metaverse Changes Human Work Patterns

Original Author: Mark Purdy

Original Title: 《How the Metaverse Could Change Work》

Translated by: Hu Tao, Chain Catcher

Imagine a world where you can chat with colleagues by the seaside, take meeting notes while floating around a space station, or teleport from your office in London to New York, all without stepping out your front door. Feeling stressed by too many meetings scheduled today? Then why not send a supportive AI-powered digital twin to lighten your load? These examples are just a glimpse into the future work vision promised by the "metaverse," a term originally coined by writer Neal Stephenson in 1992 to describe a future world of virtual reality. While there is no precise definition, the metaverse is generally considered a network of 3D virtual worlds where people can interact, conduct business, and build social connections through their virtual "avatars." You can also think of it as a virtual reality version of today’s internet.

Although still in its infancy in many ways, the metaverse has suddenly become big business, with tech giants and gaming behemoths like Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, Epic Games, and Roblox creating their own virtual worlds or metaverses. These virtual worlds leverage a multitude of different technologies, including virtual reality platforms, gaming, machine learning, blockchain, 3D graphics, digital currencies, sensors, and (in some cases) VR-supporting headsets.

How do you enter the metaverse? Many current virtual world solutions for workplaces only require a computer, mouse, and keyboard, but to gain a full 3D immersive experience, you typically need to wear a VR headset. However, computer-generated holographic technology is also rapidly advancing, allowing for experiences without headsets by using virtual observation windows that create holographic displays from computer images, or by deploying specially designed holographic pods that project people and images into actual spaces during events or meetings. Companies like Meta are also pioneering haptic (touch) gloves that enable users to interact with 3D virtual objects and experience sensations such as motion, texture, and pressure.

In the metaverse, you can make friends, raise virtual pets, design virtual fashion items, buy virtual real estate, attend events, create and sell digital art—and make money to boot. However, until recently, the emerging metaverse's impact on the world of work has received little attention.

Now that is changing. The impact of the pandemic—especially the restrictions on in-person meetings and travel—is prompting businesses to seek more authentic, cohesive, and interactive remote and hybrid work experiences. The metaverse seems poised to reshape the world of work in at least four major ways: new forms of immersive team collaboration; the emergence of new digital, AI colleagues; accelerated learning and skill acquisition through virtualization and gamification technologies; and the eventual rise of a metaverse economy with entirely new business and work roles.

Immersive: Teamwork and Collaboration in the Metaverse

The metaverse promises to bring new levels of social connection, mobility, and collaboration to the virtual work world. NextMeet, based in India, is an immersive reality platform focused on interactive work, collaboration, and learning solutions. Its mission is to eliminate the isolation and disconnection that remote and hybrid work can cause. I interviewed Pushpak Kypuram, the founder and director of NextMeet, who explained the inspiration behind their virtual workplace solution: "As the pandemic shifted to remote work, keeping employees engaged has become the biggest challenge for many companies. You can't engage 20 people in a flat, two-dimensional environment of a video call; some people don’t like to appear on camera; you’re not simulating real-life scenarios. That’s why companies are turning to metaverse-based platforms."

With NextMeet's immersive platform, employee digital avatars can enter and exit virtual offices and meeting rooms in real time, walk to virtual help desks, give live presentations from a podium, relax with colleagues in networking lounges, or roam conference centers or exhibitions using customizable avatars. Participants access the virtual environment through their desktops or mobile devices, choose or design their avatars, and then navigate the space using keyboard buttons: arrow keys to move, double-click to sit in a chair, and so on. Kypuram gave the example of employee onboarding: "If you onboard 10 new colleagues and show them a PDF document introducing the company, they will lose attention in 10 minutes. What we do is have them walk through a 3D hallway or gallery with 20 interactive booths where they can explore the company. You want them to walk around the virtual hall instead of just looking at a document."

Other metaverse companies are emphasizing workplace solutions that help address video conferencing fatigue and social disconnection in remote work. UK-based startup PixelMax helps organizations create immersive workplaces designed to enhance team cohesion, employee well-being, and collaboration. Their virtual workplaces can be accessed via web systems on computers (no headsets required) and include the following features:

• "Serendipity" Experience: PixelMax's immersive technology allows you to see your colleagues' avatars in real time, making it easier to chat when you bump into them in the virtual workplace. In a recent interview, PixelMax co-founder Shay O'Carroll explained, "Informal and spontaneous conversations account for a large portion of business communication—research shows that it can be as high as 90% in fields like R&D—and during the pandemic, we lost a lot of this important communication."
• Wellness Spaces: These are dedicated areas for users to relax and experience different things. As Shay O'Carroll explained, "We created wellness areas designed as forests or aquariums. They can even be on the moon. These areas can include on-demand content like guided meditations and/or exercise classes."
• Delivery to Your Physical Space: Clients can add features like ordering takeout food or books and other items in the virtual environment, which are then delivered to their physical location (e.g., home).
• Real-Time Status Tracking: Just like in a physical workplace, you can move around and get an overview of the office floor, see where colleagues are and who is available, and quickly chat.

PixelMax co-founder Andy Sands stated that the ultimate vision is to connect different virtual workplaces. It is currently building a virtual workplace for 40 leading interior design manufacturers based in Manchester, UK. "It's about community building, dialogue, and interaction. We want employee avatars to be able to move between the manufacturing world and the interior design world, or just as easily take that avatar to Roblox and Fortnite to watch a concert."

Remote work can bring stress. A study by Nuffield Health in the UK found that nearly one-third of UK remote workers struggle to separate home and work life, with over a quarter finding it difficult to switch off after the workday ends. Virtual workplaces can better delineate home and work life, creating a sense of walking into a workplace each day and then leaving and saying goodbye to colleagues when the work is done. In a virtual workplace, your avatar provides a way to communicate your status—whether you're in a meeting, going to lunch, and so on—making it easier to stay connected with colleagues without feeling tethered to a computer or phone, a common source of stress in traditional remote work situations.

Better teamwork and communication will certainly be a major driver of virtual workplaces, but why stop there? The metaverse opens up new possibilities for rethinking offices and work environments, introducing elements of adventure, spontaneity, and surprise. Virtual offices don’t have to be the drab, uniform corporate environments of city centers: why not a beach, a cruise ship, or even another world? This vision inspired Gather, an international virtual reality platform that allows employees and organizations to "build their own offices." These dream offices can range from a "space station office" with views of Earth to a "pirate office" complete with ocean views, a captain's cabin, and a lounge for socializing. For those less inclined towards adventure, options like virtual rooftop parties or Zen garden meetings are available.

Introducing Your Digital Colleagues

Our work colleagues in the metaverse will not be limited to avatars of our real-world colleagues. An increasing number of digital colleagues will join us—highly realistic, AI-driven humanoid robots. These AI agents will serve as advisors and assistants, handling much of the heavy lifting in the virtual world and theoretically freeing human employees to focus on more efficient, value-added tasks.

In recent years, conversational AI systems have made significant advancements—algorithms that can understand text and voice conversations and engage in natural language dialogue. These algorithms are now evolving into digital humans that can perceive and interpret context, display emotions, make human-like gestures, and make decisions. One example is UneeQ, an international technology platform focused on creating "digital humans" that can work across a wide range of fields and roles. UneeQ's digital workers include Nola, a digital shopping assistant or concierge for New Zealand's Noel Leeming stores; Rachel, a mortgage advisor on call; and Daniel, a digital twin of UBS's chief economist who can meet with multiple clients simultaneously to provide personalized wealth management advice.

Emotion is the next frontier in the metaverse. SoulMachines is a New Zealand-based tech startup that is combining advancements in AI (such as machine learning and computer vision) with autonomous animation (such as facial rendering, gaze direction, and real-time gestures) to create lifelike, emotionally sensitive digital humans. Its digital humans are taking on various roles, including skincare consultants, COVID health advisors, real estate agents, and educational coaches for university applicants.

Digital human technology opens up vast possibilities for workers and organizations. Digital humans are highly scalable—they don’t need coffee breaks—and can be deployed simultaneously in multiple locations. They can be deployed in the virtual world for more repetitive, mundane, or dangerous tasks. Human workers will increasingly choose to design and create their own digital colleagues, personalized and tailored to work alongside them. However, digital humans also bring risks, such as increased automation and the replacement of low-skilled jobs, which often have few opportunities for workers to transition to alternative roles, or the potential erosion of cultural and behavioral norms if humans become more unrestrained in their interactions with one another, behaviors that may carry over into their real-world interactions.

Learning Faster in the Metaverse

The metaverse can revolutionize training and skill development, significantly compressing the time required to develop and acquire new skills. AI-supported digital coaches can assist employees with training and career advice at any time. In the virtual world, every object—such as training manuals, machines, or products—can be interactive, providing 3D displays and step-by-step "how-to" guides. Virtual reality role-playing exercises and simulations will become commonplace, allowing workers' virtual avatars to learn in highly realistic "game" scenarios, such as "high-pressure sales presentations," "picky customers," or "challenging employee conversations."

Virtual reality technology has already been used in many fields to accelerate skill development: surgical tech company Medivis is training medical students through interactions with 3D anatomical models using Microsoft's HoloLens; Embodied Labs uses 360-degree video to help healthcare professionals experience the effects of Alzheimer's disease and age-related auditory-visual impairments to assist in diagnosis; manufacturing giants Bosch and Ford have pioneered a VR training tool using Oculus Quest headsets to train technicians in electric vehicle maintenance. UK company Metaverse Learning has created a series of nine augmented reality training models for frontline nurses in the UK, using 3D animation and augmented reality to test learners' skills in specific scenarios and reinforce best practices in nursing.

With a strong foundation in online gaming, the metaverse can also begin to tap into the potential of gamified learning technologies for easier and faster skill acquisition. PixelMax's O'Carroll observed, "Gaming has become a learning activity. In the medical field, we use gamification techniques to train lab technicians; you would divide into different groups and then go to, say, a virtual PCR testing machine, where you will experience learning how to operate that machine at various stages and then record your training results." For the community of emergency responders in the UK—police, firefighters, medical personnel, etc.—PixelMax is developing a game that combines physical training with immersive gamification to allow emergency responders to conduct repetitive training, try different strategies, see different outcomes, and explore various ways of working as a team.

Research shows that training in virtual worlds has significant advantages over traditional instructor-led or classroom-based training, as it offers a greater range for visually demonstrating concepts (such as engineering design) and work practices, provides more opportunities for hands-on learning, and enhances overall engagement through immersion in games and problem-solving via a "task-based" approach. Learning in virtual worlds can also leverage virtual agents and AI-driven robots that can provide assistance, nudges, and set scalable challenges when learners encounter difficulties. The visual and interactive nature of metaverse-based learning may also be particularly appealing to individuals with autism, who often respond better to visual cues than verbal prompts. Virtual reality tools can also be used to combat social anxiety in work environments, such as by creating realistic yet safe spaces to practice public speaking and meeting interactions.

New Roles in the Metaverse Economy

The internet has not only brought new ways of working: it has ushered in an entirely new digital economy—new businesses, new jobs, and new roles. As the immersive 3D economy gains momentum over the next decade, so too will the virtual world. IMVU is an avatar-based social network with over 7 million users per month, featuring thousands of creators who produce and sell their own virtual products for the virtual world—designer clothing, furniture, cosmetics, music, stickers, pets—generating $7 million in monthly revenue. In addition to creators, there are "meshers" who design basic 3D templates that others can customize and tailor into virtual products. A successful mesh can be replicated and sold thousands of times, earning substantial income for its developers. The Decentraland platform is creating virtual real estate agents that enable users to buy, sell, and build businesses on virtual land, earning a digital currency called "Mana."

Looking ahead, just as we talk about digital-native companies today, we are likely to see the emergence of metaverse-native enterprises—companies conceived and developed entirely within virtual 3D worlds. Just as the internet brought forth roles that barely existed 20 years ago—such as digital marketing managers, social media consultants, and cybersecurity professionals—the metaverse may similarly introduce a plethora of new roles that we can only imagine today: avatar conversation designers, "holo-moving" travel agents to simplify mobility across different virtual worlds, and metaverse digital wealth managers and asset managers, among others.

Challenges and Imperatives

Despite the promising future, the metaverse is still in many ways in its infancy. Significant obstacles may hinder its future development: the computational infrastructure and power demands of a mature work virtual world are enormous, and today’s virtual worlds consist of different virtual worlds that operate differently from the original internet. The metaverse also brings a range of regulatory and human resources compliance issues, such as concerns about potential addiction risks or unacceptable behaviors like bullying or harassment in virtual worlds, which have recently garnered some attention. While many issues remain, business leaders, policymakers, and HR leaders can start with the following imperatives to successfully collaborate in the metaverse:

• Prioritize Skill Portability: For workers, the portability of skills and qualifications will be a concern: "Is the experience or certification gained in one virtual world or enterprise relevant to another world or my real life?" Employers, educators, and training providers can create more transferable skills by establishing appropriate certification standards for skills acquired in the metaverse and obtaining proper accreditation for training providers. This will help avoid quality dilution and provide necessary assurances for metaverse-based workers and future employers.
• True Hybridization: As the pandemic's surge in remote work has shown, many businesses have lagged in adopting truly digital ways of working, with outdated policies, lack of infrastructure, and strict divisions between consumer and business technology. Companies must avoid these pitfalls in the virtual world by creating integrated work models from the outset, allowing employees to seamlessly move between physical, online, and 3D virtual work modes using native consumer technologies in the virtual world: avatars, gaming consoles, VR headsets, and hand controllers with haptic and motion controls that map users' real-world locations to the virtual world (though some versions use only cameras). However, this is just the beginning. Some companies are developing virtual motion technologies, such as leg attachments and treadmills, to create realistic walking experiences. Nextmind uses ECG electrodes to decode neural signals so that users can control objects with their thoughts.
• Engage with Young People: The virtual world will force companies to rethink their approach to training, focusing on highly stimulating, immersive, challenge-based content. When designing their workplace virtual worlds, companies should pay particular attention to the younger generation, many of whom have grown up in environments of gaming, 3D, and social connections. Reverse intergenerational learning—where younger members guide and train older colleagues—can significantly facilitate the spread of metaverse-based work across the workforce.
• Stay Open: Driven by the efforts of millions of developers, gamers, and designers, today's metaverse is largely emerging in an open, decentralized manner. To fully leverage the power of this democratization movement, businesses must not only prevent control or domination of the virtual world but also actively seek to further expand and open it, such as pursuing open-source standards and software where possible and promoting "interoperability" between different virtual worlds—seamless connections. Otherwise, as we have seen in the social media space, the virtual world may soon be dominated by major tech companies, reducing choice and stifling grassroots innovation.

The workplace of the 2020s looks very different from what we imagined just a few years ago: the rise of remote and hybrid work has indeed changed expectations about why, where, and how we work. But the story of workplace transformation does not end here. While still in its early stages, the emerging metaverse offers businesses an opportunity to rebalance the scales of hybrid and remote work, reclaiming the spontaneity, interactivity, and fun of team-based work and learning while maintaining flexibility, productivity, and convenience in working from home.

But three things are clear. First, speed of adoption is crucial. With much of the technology and infrastructure already in place, large enterprises will need to act quickly to keep pace with metaverse technologies and virtual services or risk being outflanked in the talent market by more agile competitors. Second, the metaverse will only succeed if deployed as a tool for employee engagement and experience, rather than for supervision and control. Third, metaverse-based work must align with employees'—especially younger employees'—expectations of virtual experiences in their consumer and gaming lives.

Guided by these principles, business leaders can begin to envision and create their future workplaces.