Why this happened is up for debate. From a lack of audience to clunky, uncomfortable and overpriced VR hardware or a lack of interoperability, the promises of the metaverse of 2021 simply won’t come true in 2024. And Zuckerberg knows it: he mentioned the word just three times in his hour-long conference speech developers of his company Meta Connect – even though that is the name of his company.
However, not everyone gave up on this idea. A quick LinkedIn scan shows that at some companies, Metaverse executives are still in their jobs, though these days these jobs tend to be counted among any number of emerging digital innovations. One of them is LVMH’s Nelly Mensah, and references to her position subtly change to “Vice President for Digital Innovation” as interest in the Metaworld wanes. In line with industry trends, the company’s latest digital experiences relied heavily on generative artificial intelligenceno mention of the “m” word that you see anywhere.
Matthew Ball predicted this demise in a footnote at the end of his book, predicting that we would call it by a different name before the basic concept finally emerged. And right on cue, augmented reality arrived to pick up where the metaworld left off.
Repositioning the concept
With the VR-centric metaworld clearly out of sync with the mainstream, many tech brands have begun to gravitate toward AR in hopes that it will stick. So far it looks promising. Meta presented her smart glasses last year, in collaboration with Ray-Ban and at Meta Connect, it presented the first real prototype of its “true augmented reality glasses”; Apple has made extensive use of the Vision Pro’s capabilities, allowing the user to switch between AR and VR with a transition; Snap just released the latest version of its AI glasses in September, exclusively for AR Lens makers; and we are all waiting for the final version of Google’s new AR glasses, which we couldn’t help but announce in May.
Meanwhile, “phygital” has become a new marketing buzzword, referring to the supposedly growing demand among consumers to combine physical and online experiences. So, in what is perhaps an almost depressing inevitability, another LinkedIn search shows that the phrase is increasingly appearing in job titles that once had the M-word capitalized.
According to Shara Senderoff, founder of the virtual design studio Futurethe technology world’s shift toward augmented reality is an attempt to retreat in favor of a form of virtual experience that will be more enjoyable for the average consumer.
“We skipped a step,” he says. “We went from zero to six pounds [VR] headsets. It will never be comfortable, literally and figuratively. “Now you see Snapchat and Meta taking the pressure off people by bringing them into a more accessible environment.”
Perhaps finally realizing that, like the poor people of Decentraland (and perhaps Apple’s Vision Pro team), no one wants to live in a computer, Zuckerberg has apparently pulled off a marketing gimmick of sorts, repositioning the metaworld from a completely immersive, virtual experience in one that can be accessed through the company’s AR-enabled smart glasses. An experience that he hopes, unlike VR, will become a mainstream hit.
The company’s progress in AR, he said during the Meta Connect Keynote, “is getting closer to achieving the dream of Reality Labs… That’s where we’re headed.” On the other hand, he has invested far too much to say anything else.