- Tech and crypto companies have invested more time and resources in AI projects putting aside what they had planned for the metaverse
- AI has brought many real-life use cases that the metaverse failed to prove
- Meta has chosen to integrate AI into the Metaverse instead of completely forsaking one of its flagship projects
Just a year ago, tech companies were all about the Metaverse, with many corporations such as Microsoft and even governments launching metaverse projects to stay in the loop. However, the introduction of ChatGPT in November began a massive Artificial Intelligence(AI) wave that most companies, including Meta, creators of the most popular Metaverse project, have jumped on, seemingly drawing back and forsaking the Metaverse.
The Metaverse is a virtual universe in which users can connect and be a part of through virtual reality(VR) and augmented reality(AR). In this universe, users could interact with friends, buy real estate property, participate in exercises like gaming, and even visit an art gallery just like in real life.
Therefore, companies began launching projects on the Metaverse to provide products and services to users in the immersive world as they do in real life or use the Metaverse to better the products and services they offer. For instance, Amazon launched a project to enable users to shop through the Metaverse by being able to picture a product, such as a piece of furniture in your house, using VR and AR.
All Eyes On AI
While the introduction of Metaverse was faced with a lot of skepticism seeing as it was virtual and the use cases were not understood, AI, on the other hand, has been embraced with far more enthusiasm, with companies competing to launch products and claim dominance in the area thanks to its myriad of use cases.
One such company is Microsoft which, after the launch of ChatGPT, went on to invest in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and further integrated AI into its product suite. More companies, such as Google, have followed suit, which has led to the onboarding of crypto companies into AI crypto.
AI crypto results from firms in the crypto industry attempting to leverage big data, blockchain, and AI to create new solutions.
This has led to the creation of new tokens, such as The Graph, which currently shows the category. Other projects include Fetch.ai’s AI-powered economy, which connects people, services, and devices on the blockchain platform using an AI infrastructure for data sharing and communication.
The new AI era has undoubtedly affected the progress and development of the Metaverse, seeing as companies are putting aside their projects to keep up with AI. Microsoft, for instance, had launched the Industrial Metaverse project that was meant to encourage the use of the Metaverse in industrial environments. However, four months after the launch, the company ended the project and laid off 100 members working on the project.
Additionally, Meta has also seemingly taken a step back from the Metaverse. First, the company released its language model specifically focused on research. It then announced that it would begin incorporating AI into its consumer products a few days later.
However, seeing as the Metaverse project is crucial to the company, such that it led to the rebranding from Facebook to Meta, the company CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that AI would now be used to build out the Metaverse.
