Widespread Adoption Of Metaverse Technologies Years Away: NASSCOM

Metaverse technologies are likely between eight and ten years away from widespread adoption, says a new report by NASSCOM and McKinsey.

Over $120 billion worth of metaverse-based investments and merger and acquisition commitments were made in the first half of 2022: NASSCOM ( Image: Getty ).

Even as Big Tech companies are quietly tiptoeing towards the metaverse and the technology seeing strong early adoption, metaverse technologies are likely between eight and ten years away from widespread adoption, says a new report by NASSCOM and McKinsey.

Industries such as retail, manufacturing, media, healthcare, telecom, professional services and banking are likely to be the major spend drivers of enterprise use cases in metaverse by 2030, the report by NASSCOM with McKinsey & Company added.

According to NASSCOM, over $120 billion worth of metaverse-based investments and merger and acquisition commitments were made in the first half of last year.

“We are beginning to see a more nuanced and thoughtful approach in designing an immersive experience whether it is creating virtualised sales channels with NFTs or digital twins for product designing. The potential of Metaverse technology is transformative, its at-scale potential will be determined by its impact on data privacy, inclusion, health and the impact on energy & sustainability,” Sangeeta Gupta, Senior Vice President, NASSCOM, said in a statement.

The word metaverse has been existing for nearly almost decades. However, the technology only caught major mainstream attention in recent years.

Fifty-seven per cent of the chief experience officers (CXOs) who were surveyed for the report said that they have metaverse initiatives underway for both the long-term and short-term.

Several initiatives are underway such as re-imagining learning and development using gamified AR/VR-based learning suites with virtual instructors, creating an immersive recruitment and employee onboarding with avatar interaction and networking with employees at job fairs and imagining digital twin offices for employee collaborations and meetings.

However, the technology's at-scale potential will be determined by factors such as clarity on return on investment (RoI), technology and talent readiness, and the ability to address societal concerns, the findings showed.