Marketing your Mfg Business in the 2030 Industrial Metaverse

INTRO

This article represents my prediction for what I believe will come to be the normal/expected experience of how your Manufacturing Business will be Marketed in the Metaverse by the year 2030. NOTE: The technology I am presenting in this article is "all possible to implement today" if you so desire. I am hoping to bring awareness of what is possible, so that you can consider starting the implementation process within your organization in order to get a jump on your competition,

THE TREND

Just as Brick & Mortar Mfg Businesses eventually needed to create a Website on the Internet in order to have a presence and remain competitive, I believe the same will be true with the need to have a Digital Twin Building in the Metaverse.

Note: The "Spatial Computing" component of the Metaverse is the most important feature to leverage in my opinion [1].

3D AVATAR AI SPOKESPERSON vs WEB PAGE

Instead of landing on the home page of a website, in the Metaverse an AI driven 3D Avatar Chatbot [3DAC] (pronounced: "3-DAC") spokesperson will present the most natural way to interact with the Corporate 3D Metaverse Site.

The 3DAC will have access to a massive "Knowledge Database" of information about the company, which employees have directly contributed into, and can thus feel a sense of pride and ownership.

Note: Questions can be asked about products and corporate information, i.e., similar to how one might ask a question to Amazon's Alexa, but within a corporate knowledge database.

DEPARTMENTAL 3DAC's

Once the 3DAC spokesperson has greeted you, she/he can continue to answer your questions about the company until you ask a question about a specific dept. within the company [e.g., service, sales, engineering, human resources, etc.]. They can then introduce you to the Departmental 3DAC to further answer your questions.

NOTE: The benefit of having specialized departmental 3DAC's not only makes it more interesting for the user experience but will also better organize the knowledge databases by department.

LIVE SPATIAL COLLABORATION WITH EMPLOYEES

If there are any additional questions that need to be answered, or perhaps a design review of a custom product being purchased, then the same Digital Twin Site can be utilized for Live Spatial Collaboration [2] meetings with an Employee of the company... i.e., via their 3D Avatar counterpart.

Note: Ideally, the Spatial Collaboration platform you use in the Metaverse should also provide the opportunity to conduct XR Instructional Training and will later be discussed in this article.

DIGITAL TWIN METAVERSE BUILDING DESIGN

A Digital Twin Metaverse Building Design that represents the business can be visited when traveling within the Metaverse. The 3DAC Spokesperson will greet you when you arrive at the facility and will be able to answer any questions you may have about the company, accompany you on a tour of the facility, or introduce you to the appropriate Departmental 3DAC as mentioned earlier in this article.

MARKETING AND EVALUATION OF PRODUCTS

One can evaluate products in the Industrial Metaverse. For example, a Mfg. Engineer who needs to purchase Industrial Equipment, can visit the facility in the Metaverse, walk around the equipment, watch it run, or possibly even operate it via command buttons, etc.

Note: The image shown is an Augmented Reality experience, in which case, visiting a digital twin facility is not really practical. However, one must still need to be able to locate and evaluate products in AR within the Metaverse, so it is something that must be considered.

XR INSTRUCTIONAL TRAINING WITHIN THE METAVERSE

Augmented & Virtual Reality is currently being used for XR Instructional Training in many industries, and when you enable Live Spatial Collaboration [3] within an AR or VR Training Session, it then fits in nicely with Metaverse Functionality.

Note: As a good use case example: once could ask a Service 3DAC at the Digital Twin Facility that you would like to receive training on how to service a product. In which case, they can then present you with an XR (AR/VR) Training Scenario to follow.

CONCLUSION

This article represents a tiny glimpse of what is possible for Marketing an Industrial Business and Products within the Metaverse. There are many aspects such as Knowledge Capture, Real-Time 3D Model Content Creation, Data Management, AI, etc. to also be considered, but are beyond the scope of this article.

References

1 - The Metaverse Value-Chain - Jon Radoff [April 7, 2021]

2 - Spatial Collaboration with Employees - Kerwin Kassulker [LinkedIn Post]

3 - Spatial Collaboration in XR Training - Altoura [Corporate Website]