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WEB 3.0 AND THE METAVERSE: HYPE VS REALITY ANDWHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

Metaverses and Web 3.0 are the new faces of digital disruption. What are they? How much of what you hear is hype versus reality, and what does it mean for you?

The future of digital is as exciting as it is nerve-wracking. For modern business, it means assessing, understanding, and measuring the opportunities that tech companies have promised as they take new steps in their technical evolution. The tech giants are themselves transforming, and over the next decade they will be expanding the internet and constructing the next computing platforms: metaverses.

advantage in your business, you need to be on top of the five principles of Web 3.0, the work-in-progress third generation of the internet. Web 3.0, it has been suggested, will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to provide decentralized and open access, which will translate into greater utility for its users. The metaverse is a set of interconnected digital spaces that includes 3D experiences which will allow users to move between them, enabling them to do things that they can’t do in the physical world.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION It’s still a work in progress, but they claim to be pushing the boundaries by building richer and even more immersive platforms in order to help people to connect. The projection is that in the next 10 years, metaverses will reach a billion people and generate billions in digital commerce. But how much of this is hype? If you are to embrace these changes as opportunities (but be aware of the risks and dangers) and use them to your

MICHAEL WADE Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Director of IMD’s Global Center for Digital Business Transformation

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