The digital economy around the world, including in Russia, is our new economic reality, which is based on the most advanced technologies: AI, big data, digital assets, currencies and business processes. This is a driver of economic development, during which existing economic laws are transformed, consumer values and the format of doing business are changing.
The transformation of modern business takes place in metaverses – unique multidimensional spaces that unite many virtual worlds, where participants can interact with each other and with surrounding objects. Metaverses are created on the basis of the rapid development of digital technologies of augmented, virtual and mixed reality, the emergence of new digital currencies, the use of digital resources.
The transfer of the entire business or part of it to the metaverses is a key trend in the development of the economy as a whole and its individual industries and spheres, which in the future will contribute to the explosive growth of their profits. Thus, the growth of income from commercial presence in metaverses is projected at rate of more than 14 times (from $66 billion in 2022 to $940 billion and above in 2030). This is a very high growth rate. And this is exactly the promising area of development where the active investment attention of the business is riveted.
Firstly, it is extremely important in this regard to be able to create unique digital twins of companies in metaverse – that is, digital models that in a special virtual environment reflect real business processes or their elements. Such digital copies, or digital twins, can be used to debug supply chains, optimize costs, etc. For example, BMW creates a digital twin of its factories using Nvidia Omniverse technology to analyze its economy and the consequences of possible changes in logistics and production business processes.
Another example – in the field of tourism and the hospitality industry, the creation of digital twins will not just allow creating new vivid impressions, but also in conditions of the impossibility of real travel for any reason (pandemics, lockdowns, economic sanctions, force majeure situations, etc.) it will enable consumers to expand the horizons of knowledge and at the same time reduce the burden on the environment.
Secondly, metaverse allows you to create unique conditions for training and advanced training of employees through the creation of virtual simulators or digital analog workplaces, platforms, immersive working environment. This is especially important for the aerospace industry, the military field, the spheres of life protection and security, countering terrorism, as well as in industries that carry out work in hard-to-reach places (in the regions of the Far East, Kamchatka, Siberia, the North Pole, deep sea depressions, open space, etc.).
At the same time, metaverse can be used as high-tech online platforms that will effectively build training processes in companies, significantly increase the technological level of employees, create and maintain a corporate culture, provide the necessary level of planning, motivation, control and coordination of actions of personnel and their individual services and divisions. This is especially significant in cases where companies are of an interethnic or global network nature.
For example, Microsoft is already involved in mastering business processes in metaverses, it is developing virtual offices and working environments in such complex digital spaces. In turn, Google is also creating virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) departments in the form of Google Labs with tools for holographic video conferencing.
Thirdly, the potential of metaverses will make it possible to carry out special events for immersion promotion of brands, their goods and services as efficiently as possible. For example, the show business and fashion industry is already beginning to actively hold awards ceremonies, fashion premieres, new shows, virtual concerts, parties and other events in the metaverses, which allows reaching more and more interested participants without restrictions on time, number of attendees, geography or nationality.
Fourth, in the metaverse, businesses expect unique opportunities to create new values for consumers through a significant increase in immersiveness and interaction, the development of gamification-based communications, and the provision of a significant number of new services (for example, when metaverse users can wear fashion brands in virtual game processes spaces).
Fifth, the use of a more complex technological environment Web 3.0 in the metaverses, in which a higher version of the Internet is presented, the physical world is connected to the virtual one, two-dimensional space is replaced by three-dimensional space, will really allow the business to master a fundamentally new market and its individual niches. In the next 3-5 years, metaverses, despite a number of risks and cyber threats, will actively develop industries such as energy, aerospace, automotive, bioengineering, e-commerce, tourism and hospitality, fashion and other industries and spheres. The potential for business development in the field of a new technological phenomenon – metaverses – is very high, impressive and extremely in demand.
By Svetlana Panasenko, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Design, PRUE named after G.V. Plekhanov