Screw office meetings, Metaverse is taking over: Bill Gates shares take on the future of the metaverse

The global Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that we can work from virtually anywhere. While this may not apply to certain critical roles like emergency healthcare, thousands of companies are beginning to rethink productivity and communication in the workspace.

Fueled by the latest development in the metaverse space and the changes introduced by Covid-19, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates voiced his optimism over the future of the metaverse. According to him, having meetings in the metaverse as opposed to in physical spaces might happen a lot sooner than we expect.

Gates predicts that within the next two or three years, office meetings will take place in the metaverse. He shared his thought in his famous “Year in Review” report published on his personal website. Gates wrote:

I predict most virtual meetings will move from 2D camera image grids – which I call the "Hollywood Squares model," although I know that probably dates me – to the metaverse, a 3D space with digital avatars.

For the uninitiated, the metaverse is a combination of multiple elements of technology, including virtual reality and augmented reality. It is akin to living within a digital universe. The 2009 American epic science fiction movie Avatar best illustrates what a metaverse is.

Although Gates is optimistic that meetings will soon happen in virtual spaces, he noted that adoption of the tech would be slow because many people still lack the tools such as VR goggles to fully enjoy virtual experiences. Meanwhile, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg predicts that key components of the industry could go mainstream within the next five to ten years.

"There’s still some work to do, but we’re approaching a threshold where the technology begins to truly replicate the experience of being together in the office," Gates said.

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