The metaverse continues to be a hot topic worldwide, so much so that GlobalData revealed that 40 per cent more companies have mentioned ‘Metaverse’ in their company filings documents quarter-on-quarter.
Metaverse is expected to significantly transform the way businesses connect with their customers, how they engage with their employees and the way people interact with each other. While the main context of the metaverse continues to revolve around virtual avatars, improving experiences for remote employees, immersive customer engagement and new opportunities for commerce, this virtual world have the potential to create numerous new job opportunities and roles.
With the development of the metaverse having been substantially accelerated due to the pandemic, the transformation of how people work, where they work, to the jobs they can do, is well on the horizon.
As a result, new job roles, such as metaverse researcher, metaverse scientist, metaverse mentor, metaverse planet and ecosystem developer and even metaverse security expert are expected to emerge, as businesses gain access to their consumers’ metaverse through their devices.
In turn, this fuels the need for a varied range of talents in the metaverse, a topic Yellow.ai discusses in our recent Envision 3.0 web event.
The future of work in the metaverse
Although the metaverse is still an ambiguous concept, its main idea is rooted in science fiction which integrates the trio of physical, virtual and digital realities.
This is well demonstrated by Meta, which is reportedly already hiring close to 10,000 staff for their VR and AR hardware products and has also announced plans to create another 10,000 jobs in the European Union (EU) over the next five years.
The development of hardware, software and downstream services are expected to be spurred on by the Metaverse as businesses invest time, money and effort into developing a virtual presence.
Also Read: How the metaverse opens new opportunities for education
With platforms on the metaverse being utilised to collect and analyse insights on user behaviour, interactions and experiences, the very nature of work could be subjected to change, as the Metaverse plays into the future of hybrid workplaces, bridging the gap between in-person and remote working.
Employees would be able to work with geographically dispersed team members but feel as though these members are in the same room, sitting next to them and working on projects together.
For instance, with metaverse, employees could have beachside conversations with their colleagues, take meeting notes, or teleport from their office in London to New York, all without stepping outside their front door.
Already, we’re seeing work take steps towards this future, with numerous current workplace metaverse solutions requiring nothing more than a computer, a mouse and a keyboard. However, a VR-enabled headset will be required to experience the full 3D surround experience.
The metaverse will see existing job roles such as blockchain developers, AI experts, data scientists and more take on builder roles in its development. For the ‘first-movers’ of the metaverse, new jobs could also ensue as there will be roles in creating the metaverse’s applications from new industries, ranging from content creators, and interaction designers to experience designers and more.
Metaverse intensifying talent hunt
As AR and VR devices increasingly become more affordable and immersive experiences are made available for the masses, competition in the Metaverse space has also heated up.
In addition, due to the Metaverse requiring expertise in various types of emerging tech like VR, AR, mixed reality (MR), AI and more to build another ‘universe’ which is close to reality, there is a need for skilled talent which is not only difficult to find but also hard to retain.
With the metaverse’s continued evolution, the right recruitment strategy will depend on how well businesses can comprehend this new space, what it is capable and incapable of, and how businesses recruit or upskill talent to help grow this new reality as it matures in the future.
Skills in AR and VR will become imperative, and organisations will need to upskill their employees, particularly in the areas of AI application development, XR or MX (Extended or Mixed Reality) and NFT development.
Knowing how to code in C++, Java, Python, and R to build and deploy AI models will be crucial for those aiming to become Metaverse developers. They will also need to be proficient in big data technologies like Apache Spark Cassandra, Hadoop, and MongoDB.
For the builders of the metaverse, experience in developing AI frameworks like Caffe, PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Theano, along with skills in building deep learning (DL) algorithms like convolutional neural networks, generative adversarial networks, and recurrent neural networks, will be key skills which will give them an edge over other talents vying to become metaverse builders as well.
In constructing the metaverse, it will not be just talents from the tech industry that will bring value but also those from the marketing industry. Thus, it will not only be the tech companies who are headhunting but also consumer brands and the original pioneers of the metaverse from the gaming industry.
Also Read: Into the metaverse: How to extract real business value from the hype?
With the host of new roles expected to emerge as the metaverse develops, both companies and individuals will need to arm themselves with the knowledge and capabilities to cater to these newly formed roles across industries and functions.
The way forward
When hiring for the metaverse, companies can focus not only on bringing together the right skills and talents to create the metaverse’s capabilities but also on how users will access these capabilities safely?
Hiring dedicated teams which work towards emphasising safety and privacy will be crucial. Given that the Metaverse is slated to bring about a new generation of marketing and advertising opportunities, where brands and consumers come together to co-create, marketing and creator-aligned roles will become a prime focus.
The world of work is likely to reshape in four major ways: new immersive forms of team collaboration; the emergence of new digital, AI-enabled colleagues; the acceleration of learning and skills acquisition through virtualisation and gamified technologies; and the eventual rise of a metaverse economy with completely new enterprises and work roles.
As such, acquiring the right people and skills will be crucial for the success of the metaverse, whether it be the ‘universe’ or the business’s success in this new universe.
Watch Yellow.ai’s Envision 3.0 here, where we discuss various topics surrounding the Metaverse such as Conversational AI in the Metaverse, Redefining Brand Experiences for Digital Humans and more.
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