PwC 2022 US Metaverse Survey

Build metaverse foundations: Set people and tech priorities

Companies are prioritizing metaverse hiring, customer research and upskilling as much or even more than their investments in metaverse-related technology. That’s wise, since technology is only an enabler. It’s the accompanying processes and skills that determine its value. Still, consumer uptake for many metaverse-related technologies is surging. Twelve percent have bought a VR headset in the previous two years, and VR is just one way to enter the metaverse. Apps can increasingly enable metaverse experiences through your laptop or phone. The speedy advance of VR, web3, blockchain, crypto, NFTs and other technologies that enhance metaverse activities may be a sign that the metaverse itself can grow and scale quickly.

Do you have the people + tech to power your business strategy?

Companies are beginning to create and hire for roles focused on the metaverse and digital assets, along with investing in tech building blocks like tools for building virtual environments.

Companies are also advancing on related organizational changes. Thirty-two percent plan to hire or appoint a “metaverse leader,” and 51% already have designated roles that focus (even if not always exclusively) on metaverse activity. Similar numbers have roles focused on cryptocurrency or NFTs. The rise of these roles is encouraging, but real metaverse value requires more than assigning responsibilities to a tech visionary. You need structures to combine skills, technology and internal processes to deliver metaverse business outcomes.

What your company can do

• Get payback today and position for tomorrow. As you focus on those metaverse elements that can provide immediate benefits — whether through brand building, e-commerce, data gathering or an enhanced work environment — make sure that you’re also building toward a fully immersive metaverse that is expected to cross multiple, interoperable environments tomorrow.
  
• Invest flexibly in the tech. The metaverse works best with specialized technologies, but it doesn’t always need them, and most have other applications as well. Cryptocurrencies, for example, are used outside the metaverse — and some metaverse transactions work fine with credit cards. The right organizational approach to metaverse technologies can enable flexibility and offer both near- and long-term benefits.
• Make your design unbounded. Just replicating your existing office or web presence in the metaverse isn’t worth the effort at this point. Instead, use the metaverse as an additional dimension of your corporate and brand expression and a chance to rethink ways of working, engaging customers and strengthening your brand and workforce experience to take full advantage of an all-new, immersive digital world. Make sure that there is baseline consistency among your channels and digital presences so that you do not dilute your brand.

Drive metaverse outcomes: meet business needs and consumer desires

Most consumers already express interest in the experiences and services that the metaverse could give them. Many are also willing to look to the metaverse to discover new brands and buy and sell physical products. But most businesses aren’t planning to provide what consumers most want like the excitement of virtual travel or the convenience of interacting in the metaverse with health providers, customer service agents and familiar brands. Business leaders tend to be more focused on internal activities such as training, collaboration and onboarding. That may seem like a way to “play it safe,” but if your customers are excited about the metaverse, it may be time to start giving them what they want.

How we’ll engage with the metaverse

Not quite on the same page? Business leaders are most interested in enterprise use cases like employee onboarding while consumers look to expanded access and customer service.

Starting with internally-focused metaverse initiatives does offer some advantages. It can be lower cost and lower risk to try something out and gather data on results when all the participants are your employees. Internal training and meetings — through VR headsets or on desktop systems — can also help build familiarity with metaverse components and refine processes as needed. Still, even if you begin with these and other enterprise use cases, your customers may want a metaverse experience. It can be possible to satisfy both needs at the same time and keep a consistent and unique metaverse brand.

What your company can do

• Stay true to your brand. For metaverse newcomers, the highest return way to start is often to build on your existing brand presence to enter the metaverse. You may wish, for example, to enhance current marketing and loyalty programs with personalized metaverse storefronts, token-gated communities and immersive experiences, including education and discovery of your products, services or brands.

• Use metaverse data with care. Decentralization, 3D experiences and new solutions can offer troves of data. The right metaverse data strategy can help identify and anticipate customer desires and their preferred channels, so long as you address consumer privacy, security and control concerns.
  

• Craft a metaverse pricing strategy. New metaverse-specific pricing strategies can help increase revenue, whether that revenue is from virtual goods and services, access to virtual experiences or access to virtual channels to sell physical goods and services.

Address metaverse risks: Build and spread trust

It’s a common challenge for a new set of technologies and applications: You’re not sure which risks exist, which to prioritize and where to start. There’s no consensus among either business leaders or consumers around top concerns — no single threat was cited by more than 39% of either group — but cyber and privacy concerns topped both groups’ lists. Consumers are clear on what would build metaverse trust for them: identity and data protection, security protocols and control over their own data. That matches what consumers want to trust tech in general.

If your company is active in the metaverse, or planning to be, act quickly to build trust and decrease risks. New metaverse challenges require swift action to protect intellectual property, financial transactions, customer data, the customer experience and more. You may also need new processes for the compliance challenges, tax requirements and third party risks of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) requirements, for example, may demand new partners, controls and skills for digital assets in a decentralized digital world.

What your company can do

• Embed trust by design. Rather than first building an application, then identifying and mitigating risks, design trust from the start into your approach to metaverse data, transactions, experiences and more. This approach should drive long-term cost efficiencies in addition to mitigating risks upfront.
  

• Identify your risk taxonomy. Many new metaverse risks are common to most companies, but you should set your own priorities. Assess your company’s unique metaverse risk-mitigation needs, with a special focus on these key areas: user identification and authentication, security and data privacy, commercialization, user experience, community guidelines and monitoring, governance, controls, and reporting.
  

• Give these key players a seat at the table. As with any digital transformation, tax, security, privacy, risk and compliance specialists should be involved with metaverse initiatives from the get go. Their early participation is critical since it may not be clear how existing and potential rules fit into the multi-component metaverse. To take just one example, digital assets, common in metaverse environments, also implicate novel characterization, indirect tax, transfer pricing and reporting considerations that your tax specialists should address early both to decrease risks and potentially find new value.

Define your metaverse strategy: Get ready for a new digital world

Business leaders are thinking big about the metaverse. More than half say it will either be the next incarnation of the internet or revolutionize businesses. As we see it, this revolution will really be more of an evolution, taking place over several years with different components maturing at different times. That’s why strategies should contain both a long-term vision, with designs for the future web3, and a practical path to invest in technologies, skills and use cases that can deliver specific business outcomes today. As you gain experience with these building blocks, you can also work to anticipate your customers’ desires for when a fully immersive metaverse becomes reality.

Today, most consumers worry about the metaverse’s societal implications (such as online hate, discrimination, sexual predators) and say that it’s just for younger people, but roughly half also say that it’s exciting and will accelerate the use of digital assets. Only two fifths call it a fad and only a third express skepticism that a true metaverse will be achieved. This vision, of optimism mixed with fear, may reflect experience with the internet, which advanced quickly — but often at a cost. For the metaverse, it may be that the companies that will enjoy lasting success will get two things right: They’ll use the metaverse and its component technologies to create products, services and experiences that truly transform the brand-consumer relationship, and they’ll act early to make sure that these initiatives inspire trust.

What your company can do

• Be relevant. Even if it’s often wisest to start by extending current activities into the metaverse, lasting success is more likely to come from offering new products and experiences that can only exist in the metaverse and that truly change how people live their diverse lives.
  

• Be useful. Consider developing products and services that offer lasting utility — ones that people, communities, or companies will turn to again and again for information, services, entertainment and convenience.
  

• Be purposeful. Customers may trust you more if you integrate a corporate purpose that reflects their values into your metaverse activities. The metaverse could, for example, help reduce your carbon footprint (by making physical activities virtual) and help verify and present ESG data.