Metaverse: Now is the time for CIOs to experiment

Over the past forty years, CIOs have struggled to modernize, re-architect, and ultimately replace underfunded and undervalued legacy infrastructures in hopes of delivering the full benefits associated with periodic waves of transformative emerging technologies.

Debate is now raging in the IT and digital communities about what it will be on seismic technological change of the 2020s. Some argue that the metaverse will be the next dominant computing platform. Despite tepid consumer demand for metaverse capabilities thus far, the time is right for businesses to conduct experiments and prototypes in this potentially disruptive space.

Currently, the metaverse is essentially an undefined amalgam of technologies and concepts, including but not limited to Augmented Reality (AR), Avatars, Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, Augmented Reality (ER), Mixed Reality (MR), NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens), Virtual reality (VR) and Web3.

To help CIOs figure out what they should do about the metaverse, I asked a select group of CXOs at large enterprises about their plans for the metaverse and spent several weeks digesting and synthesizing as much information as possible on the topic, including a series of exercises that I posted on various social media platforms.

I asked the executives to complete the sentence: “The metauniverse is ______.” Responses ran the gamut, ranging from complete skepticism and hostility—for example, “a bunch of really interesting ideas on a whiteboard that probably won’t actually happen”—to mild interest in evangelical faith . Some consider the metaverse to be “a thing, not necessarily on thing”; “evolutionary, not revolutionary”; and should be seen as “simply an extension and rebranding of virtual reality”. One breathless supporter insisted that the metaverse was a “parallel virtual plane of existence”, while another argued that it was “moral imperative”.

Observationally, most agree that the metaverse can be a “place”, that is, an environment where people spend time, and a “platform”. Most executives also believe that the metaverse is definitely a “phenomenon” and could be a “possibility.” At the very least, it should be seen as “the latest step in the overall digitization of social activities,” according to most.

Follow the money

Research shows that supply-side organizations are spending big on the metaverse. Meta Platforms, parent of Facebook, is spending approximately US$10 billion per year for initiatives in the metaverse and plans to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.

Goldman Sachs sees potential for metaverse to grow to an 8 trillion US dollar market by 2025. Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are also bullish on the metaverse’s prospects.

Yet when asked what images, thoughts, and impressions come to mind when they think of the metaverse, most executives told me that they say the metaverse is no different from the early 2000s concept of wearing a VR headset and haptic suit while driving a flying car to your perfectly pretend mansion in a soothingly sanitized alternate reality.

If that’s the concept, it’s no wonder few CIOs have spent any serious time thinking about the possibilities for their enterprises.

Sometimes it’s helpful to think of any new technology using a train metaphor: Someone has to invent the train (ie the new technology); someone has to lay the tracks; and someone has to ride the train for the invention’s potential to be fully realized. The last group represents those who buy and implement the technology—a place reserved for CIOs.

I asked executives to place themselves on a spectrum of:

• There is no train
• There’s a train and I should probably be on it
• The train had already left the station, and I was behind

Most executives place themselves somewhere beyond “there is no train” and closer to “there is a train and I should probably be on it.”

A heavily networked CIO at a major energy company explained, “None of the corporations are playing with it, and it’s still pretty marginally outside of the Facebooks of the world.” The former managing director of a major venture capital firm admitted, “Metaverse, I’m not even a tourist in this world.” And one Texas tech mogul insisted: ‘I know a lot of smart people and none of them can even write a metaverse.’

So if the potential is anything to go by, perhaps IT leaders will soon find themselves in the third group left behind if they don’t start exploring soon.

Get on the train

As with any emerging technology, it’s never a bad idea to ask, “What problem can this new technology solve?”

Mike Conley, CIO and SVP of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, is doing the right thing about the metaverse.

He experiments and prototypes in the space of the metaverse, aiming to engage the 99% of fans who will never visit a game. The Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team as a brand has more than 30 million followers worldwide. Historically, the primary focus of sports organizations has been on the 1% of fans who physically enter the arena.

The metaverse has the potential to change that.