The metaverse: possibilities for businesses to explore right now

Much has been written about the metaverse in the last 12-18 months; many predictions have been made about when it will mature and what it means for organisations, consumers and citizens. CGI sees the metaverse as a digitally-enabled world, where organisations and communities interact in real-time. A persistent, collaborative environment where people come together to learn, work, shop and share experiences.

The metaverse has already started to change the way we live, work and consume content. What is it offering businesses and organisations and how can it be leveraged to unlock value?

Existing metaverse use cases

Organisations are exploring numerous metaverse use cases to create value for customers and employees in the short term, such as training and collaboration environments to improve knowledge share, retention and employee experience. For example, scenarios that immerse the user in a ‘real world’ event using virtual reality can help with health and safety training.

The metaverse is also already supporting proactive remote health monitoring for the health and care industries to enable virtual care at home. Long-term conditions and well-being for proactive intervention can be monitored using a digital twin and control centre.

An increasingly popular use case is to use the metaverse for increased audience engagement, driving greater brand awareness and revenue. This is continuing to evolve, and we are already seeing businesses build brand awareness and drive new revenue streams with digital rewards to unlock additional benefits for consumers using fan tokens and unique and limited edition non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Currently, business use cases and associated technology investment are typically built around factors such as increased revenue, margin improvements and increased efficiency of people and assets.

Many businesses are exploring how and where to start with the metaverse and looking at internal use cases to further understand the technology, its impact and capabilities. Pressures on recruitment, retention and the shift to hybrid working are leading many businesses to explore how the metaverse can be leveraged to support these challenges and improve the experience for employees.

Our experience of the metaverse

CGI is building pathways to the metaverse for its organisation and for clients. With a diverse workforce geographically spread around the UK, we recognise that creating a collaborative and supportive place to work requires innovative approaches supported by technology.

We have developed the CGI Meta Hub, based on our London office at 20 Fenchurch Street. It’s a collaborative metaverse environment which enables a unique and progressive onboarding experience for new joiners to CGI. It’s used to bring together new CGI employees – known as members – from across the UK into a single virtual space to share key onboarding information and meet leaders from our business.

Through a tour of the CGI Meta Hub new joiners are able to familiarise themselves with both the virtual and physical office layout and environment. The welcome sessions held in the metaverse allow participants to meet CGI business leaders, build networks and access key information such as career pathways, learning and development opportunities and business offerings through pre-defined stalls. Through this environment, employees can view relevant content and quickly get up to speed with the capabilities of the business.

These scenarios are enabled by the technical capabilities of the Meta Hub, including user-driven video and presentations for content sharing; 1:1 and spatial audio for presentations and Q&A; and high-quality and true-to-life visuals for familiarisation of our office environment.

For equity of access the CGI Meta Hub can be accessed via PC, virtual reality headset and, as it scales, a mobile app. The addition of the Meta Hub into onboarding processes has been warmly welcomed by our members and has unlocked several benefits including a truly immersive and productive space to build networks across all levels of the business. We are confident that this approach will improve the overall experience and retention of key information for our new hires by enhancing the hybrid working experience and offering a truly innovative onboarding experience which differentiates us as a business.

The next stages of the CGI Meta Hub include scaling the solution to further enable multiple meetings across locations, gamification of learning and associated digital rewards and joining up international Meta Hubs to further build global business communities.

The possibilities of the metaverse for organisations are seemingly endless. Getting started with a clear use case and target benefits will help your organisation further understand the potential, associated capabilities and benefits it will unlock. Using the metaverse for immersive onboarding and collaboration across your organisation for improved employee experience could be an ideal place to start