Business leaders believe that the metaverse will be one of the most influential technological trends in the next decade.
The metaverse is a technology that will “really disrupt us as a brand and a company,” said Manoj Kumbhat, global CIO at Kimberly-Clark.
When thinking about engaging with the younger generation, Kumbhat sees the metaverse - a virtual world where consumers can buy, work and play - as particularly important.
“As we think about the next generation, how do we bring consumers into the brands we build?” He said during a panel of the MIT Sloan CIO symposium entitled “The Most Influential Technological Trends in the Next Decade.”
While other technologies, including quantum computing, will also have an impact in the next 10 years, Kumbhat said the metaverse and the technologies that make it possible, such as 5G and augmented and virtual reality, are likely to be the most transformative for businesses.
Although the metaverse has received a lot of attention on the panel, not every business leader has agreed that it will be the most critical challenge or important technology for improving business in the next decade.
Metaverse
The metaverse is a virtual world that companies are starting to use. But building it and learning how to work in it will require new skills, panelists said.
Suneet Dua, director of product and technology development at PvC US, said during a panel discussion that his company has clients who are already deeply immersed in the metaverse.
I have clients who have already bought real estate in the metaverse, who perform transactions in the metaverse, who expect us to perform transactions with them in the metaverse.
Suneet DuaDirector of Product and Technology Development, PvC USA
However, human skills are not developing fast enough to keep up with the development of this new virtual world, Dua said.
“I have clients who have already bought real estate in the metaverse, who are doing transactions in the metaverse, who expect us to do transactions with them in the metaverse,” Dua said. But he also has clients who print 30-page reports.
“That digital divide is the real problem,” he said.
Business leaders need to focus on the metaverse, Dua said. But if technology leaders do not insist on training and retraining of managers and employees in order to direct their business to the virtual space, Dua said that it will result in a “bigger problem”.
“Eighty-five million new jobs are coming in the next three to four years, and all of us in the room need to retrain for those new jobs and new skills,” Dua said. “We need to know what future skills are.
While companies should be preparing for new innovative technological trends such as the metaverse, the effects of other technologies, such as AI and ML, are already beginning to take shape.
Behind the scenes technological trends
Although business leaders believe that technology such as the metaverse will have a significant impact, panelist Eben Hewitt, a colleague and CTO at Saber Corporation, says advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to have the greatest impact on businesses in the future. . decade.
Using planes as an example, Hewitt said that machine learning is used to dictate which seats passengers will sit on as soon as the plane arrives at the gate.
The growing use of such algorithms in subtle ways to speed up business operations will be significant in the long run, Hewitt said.
“This is a trend that is happening,” he said during the panel. “[Ongoing advances in ML] it will permeate our daily lives more and more in ways we don’t recognize, in ways that don’t capture the headlines. “
Mackenzie Holland is a news writer covering major technologies and federal regulations. Prior to joining TechTarget, she was a general reporter for Wilmington StarNews and a reporter on crime and education in Vabash Plain Dealer.
