Why Spatial Computing and the Metaverse Might Kill the Office

After a few years of promising flexibility and "work from anywhere" cultures, big companies are now pivoting back to their pre-2020 norm. Employees are being offered carrots (and in some cases, threatened with sticks) if they don't start commuting and sitting in cube farms yet again, and employers have simply chosen to ignore the outcry and force everyone back.

The unstated reason is that commercial real estate leases are both long and expensive, and rather than investing in converting those properties into housing (fun fact: NYC just hit 100k unhoused folks last week) companies would rather just maintain the status quo. The stated reasons, however, generally have to do with collaboration and serendipity -- running into someone in the cafeteria or being able to swing by your colleague's desk for a quick chat can enhance productivity, learning, and connection.

And that's fair. While Slack and other messaging services have filled in a bit, there is something to be said for swinging by someone's office for a quick chat -- and the formality of requesting a time on Zoom destroys that. But with the announcement of the Quest 3 and Vision Pro, there is another path forward -- the metaverse office.

If we're all working in a shared space in the metaverse, we can be anywhere in the world and together in the same office at the same time. We'll operate with a traffic light model -- if my avatar has a red light above my head, it means I'm in a meeting or on deadline and not to be disturbed. A yellow light means that I'm focused but can chat if it's urgent; green means I'm grabbing a virtual coffee and free for a gab. Our avatars can chat and collaborate and then head back to our desks.

And these virtual offices won't have any of the downsides of the IRL open plan spaces we have now. A very smart friend of mine, who has been diagnosed with ADHD, can't work in open plan offices and finds herself shut out from many roles where she would add value. She could simply block the noise and set aside "available" times, rather than dealing with constant disruption. And there would be no more sitting in traffic, cramming onto trains, or missing the opportunity to run errands mid-day.

The metaverse will transform the way we work and socialize in the next five to ten years. If you're interested in learning more, drop me a line.

An Overnight Sensation Seven Years in the Making

With the announcement of the Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest 3, the future I've been looking forward to since 2016 is finally here. I've spent the past seven years laying the groundwork for this moment, when VR would crack the mainstream. It has been declared the next big thing, only to be declared dead six months later, so many times I have lost track. The last several years have truly been a rollercoaster.

But all the building has led to this moment. I've been able to work with some of the biggest companies and consultancies to shape their thinking about spatial computing and designing for XR. I've taught at leading universities and lectured all over the world about how this technology will create transformative change, and now the rest of the world is catching up.

Think about the astonishing possibilities to come. I helped Coca-Cola understand how smartphone based AR needed to have some sort of tie to the physical world; this will be doubly important to understand on the Quest 3 and Vision Pro, with their superior passthrough.

I worked with Accenture, DDI, Walmart, and Lowe's to create training around social impact topics in VR -- imagine how that would look when volumetrically captured and placed in a new headset. And I still believe in the power of fully immersive VR training, a capability found in both headsets as well as all those currently in market.

The educational possibilities for these devices are extraordinary. I've been working with Meta on use cases for education, and it wouldn't surprise me if in ten years, every student was using one of these headsets to learn. From storytelling to curriculum design, I've helped customize it all for the metaverse.

If you're interested in building in this new world, please reach out. The last place you want to be is behind the curve.

What happens when politics enters the metaverse?

By now, you've likely read about the disastrous Ron DeSantis campaign announcement on Twitter last night; what was supposed to be a virtual rally to launch a presidential run turned into something that reminded me of those first dark weeks of lockdown, when no one quite knew how to use Zoom. Widely mocked and considered a fail (whale), it did seem to highlight the challenges platforms have when it comes to running events at scale.

But beyond that, it does seem like the era of politicians dominating social media might be drawing to a close. While the 2024 election cycle might not have many metaverse activations, subsequent elections will -- and that raises a whole host of issues we need to prepare for right now.

The first is that of scale; while we can mock Twitter all we want, we've also seen some metaverse platforms collapse under the weight of too many users. If any platform is going to host an event with a big ticket candidate, they need to make sure their servers can handle it; otherwise, the failure becomes the story.

The basics are one thing -- but how can we verify information and identity in the metaverse? Right now, anyone could create an avatar of a political candidate and program them with an AI to sound like that person, and let them roam around the metaverse. Moving forward, we need strong verification systems to make sure people are who they say they are in this new world. We've seen how the death of verification and credentials brought down web2 social media networks, and need to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Misinformation is trickier. While it might be hard for someone to create a candidate avatar out of whole cloth, it will be increasingly easy to create deep fake video and audio clips and share those. Audio in particular is hard to regulate -- the metaverse is real time and ephemeral, and word travels fast. It will be a constant struggle to protect free speech while also making sure that abuse, hate speech, and misinformation are not tolerated. But here, AI can play a role, by listening for keywords, quickly determining is something falls within the bounds of protected speech, and muting accordingly.

Outside the metaverse, we need to focus on media literacy and looking out for signs that something is a fraud or misinformation. We can build all the guardrails we want in virtual worlds, but unless the people embodying those avatars know how to spot a lie, we're likely going to be dealing with the same issues we are facing right now.

How AI Can Make Your Avatar Your Secret Weapon

A few weeks ago, my health insurance company screwed something up and sent me a bill for the wrong amount. It wasn't life-shattering or anything like that, but it did necessitate several hours of waiting on hold, being told I needed to speak to another department, waiting on hold more, repeating the same data over and over, and slowly losing faith in humanity. When it was finally resolved, the cost of the time I spent was almost as much as the cost of the mistaken bill.

There really and truly has to be a better way to live, and AI and avatars can be a step towards a solution. At a talk I gave at the University of Michigan a few weeks ago, I presented the idea of a small language model -- basically, you consent to the model pulling from your own data to create an avatar. This avatar can then do all the work you don't want to do while you enjoy your life.

For instance, your avatar can do all those initial sales meetings that turn out to be a time sink nine out of ten times. In the case where the meeting is useful, it will alert the humans and connect them, and screen out all the bad fits. It will make all those mundane calls to the credit card company and the salon to fix mistakes and make appointments. In a dream world, it could even be sent out to deal with your boring relatives ("oh, your kid is potty-training? Sounds fascinating...") while you spend time with people you actually like.

There are, of course, downsides as these bots could be programmed to spread misinformation and lies -- but that's really not all that different from the current state of Twitter. And while some jobs would be lost, others would be gained, and people would be able to get back time to focus on things they are actually good at and enjoy.

If you're interested in learning more about this, drop me a line.

The Power of Big Feelings in XR

Directing in VR is challenging. Because you shoot in 360, you can't actually be in the space, so the director winds up watching through a monitor. And while the director can capture most of the big picture, it really falls on the talent to nail the subtleties.

So I was delighted when I watched the most recent piece I worked on with the incredible director Pamela Jaber and the woman pictured above absolutely eviscerated my soul with one simple word. In the piece, the user is experiencing workplace bullying, and towards the start mentions something they are excited about. To which their co-worker replies, deadpan, "cool." It is every mean high school experience in one second, and even though I helped write the script and was there when it was filmed, my soul died just a little.

For someone who has never been on the end of that treatment, that can be an earth shattering moment. Finally understanding what it is like to be on the end of bullying incident, or a bias incident, or harassment, can have a profound effect. I've seen real and concrete organizational change come from this, and workplaces improve because of it.

And this is where I get so frustrated with the tech bro bloggers who seem to love dancing on the grave of XR. Ok, so Horizon Worlds isn't your thing -- fine. How about increased empathy in the workplace? How about vastly improved grades at a historically Black college using the metaverse to teach? How about a new program where headsets are being brought into juvenile prisons so youth offenders can learn trades and get jobs? Do you want to gleefully spit on that, too?

The fact is, this technology continues to evolve and grow and have real impact. If you're down with ignoring the hype and making real, concrete, lasting change, drop me a line.