IBM Spatial & Metaverse - Leading the Immersive Enterprise
- 1. 15 August 2022 Spatial & Metaverse Leading the Immersive Enterprise
- 2. 3 Metaverse Consensus Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Crafting a common definition
- 3. Metaverse Tech A Tech B Tech C Tech A + Tech B + Tech C != Metaverse 4 Behind the Metaverse Evangelists will tell you that the Metaverse is a digital unification of immersive worlds, offering persistent 3D experiences, powered by the blockchain, decentralized and democratized for all but the details are vague and suspicious. Here’s why. Technology A + Technology B = 1 Metaverse. The Metaverse isn’t even about one technology or even a group of technologies. It’s a promise to build on a new set of values. Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022
- 4. 5 New Internet New Values Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Modified from Avi Bar-Zeev Beyond Meta: The Seven Verses * * Connections Commerce Consent Collaboration Community Copresence Coreality Connections The need for persistent multi-channel experiences. Commerce The need for communities to fairly earn revenue. Consent The need for control, privacy, & digital rights. Collaboration The need for interaction, voice, and co-creation. Community The need for tribes, friendship, and identity at scale. Copresence The need for feeling in a place and/or with people.
- 5. Metaverse elements 12 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Avatars Social Acceptance Security & Privacy Trust & Accountability Content Creation Virtual Economy The Metaverse User Interactivity Computer Vision Edge / Cloud Network Hardware Infrastructure AI & Blockchain Robotics / IoT Extended Reality Technology Values Immersion Navigate 3D environments on mobile, desktop, VR, MR & AR using natural user interactions. Persistence Digital identity’s public actions affect shared worlds and users. They are never off or reset. Communities Shared spaces, worlds, events & locations encourage, content, collaboration and co-creation. Decentralization The metaverse isn’t owned by any one company or group. Ex: Blockchain, Web3 Virtual Economy Defined by a P2P economy, digital goods, exchanges, and ‘play to earn’ gamification Interoperability Technical standards, formats, interfaces, and protocols for cross-world asset sharing
- 6. A tale of two Metaverses The Metaverse is primarily experienced in two ways. The first is entirely online and digital. It comprises virtual synchronous worlds that can be consumed in virtual reality or on mobile devices and desktop computers. The other type of experience uses Augmented or Mixed Reality with mobile devices and headsets to overlay real-time 3D on the physical real world, often with mapped spatial coordinates. Meeting in the middle Despite what many report, companies providing services focused on VR will eventually focus on AR and vice versa, creating a seamless Metaverse experience across all hardware. Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 13 Online & Virtual Geo & Augmented
- 7. 14 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Level 0 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Spatial Metaphors 2D Pages, Web of Links 2.5D / Parallax, Isolated 3D Worlds Connected Virtual Worlds Consolidated Universe Map AR, IoT, Real World Mixed AR = VR, Any interface People & Avatars Cursors, Names, Icons Stylized Avatars, Virtual Actors Portable ID Early Telepresence Full Telepresence, Full-range Avatars Scaled Holographic Presence AI Digital Twins Artifacts & Interactions Text, Photos, Videos Virtual Clothing & Accessories Portable Assets, NFTs, DAO Remixed Assets, Intuition Based Content AI Creation Assistance Holodeck-like Post-semantic web Context & Privacy Cookies, Web Bugs, Global Tracking Do Not Track, VPN, Cloaked IDs Portable Permissions Consensual Environments Context Based Discovery AI Shield Monetization Targeted Advertising Creator Economies Distributed Ownership Distributed Authorship Some Creatorship Mostly Creatorship We are here Capabilities * An evolving journey Building the Metaverse will be an interactive process. We are a few steps in but far away from the currently perceived end state. Spatial & Metaverse
- 8. IBM’s history in the Metaverse Building a foundation for the immersive enterprise. Since 2004, IBM has been involved with the creation of virtual worlds & real-time 3D in the enterprise. These early efforts involved, partnering with Second Life, creating our own virtual world platform, and creating server architecture to support the future of shared virtual experiences. 21 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Spatial & XR Spatial & XR 3 We’ve been doing this since 2006 Spatial & XR Spatial & XR 3 We’ve been doing this since 2006
- 9. 27 Metaverse benefits Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 The Metaverse offers consumers and businesses enhanced experiences and opportunities that would be difficult or impossible to achieve otherwise. Boosting Business • Connected Store • Remote Assist • Field Service • Endless Aisle Retail • Optimized Processes • 1:1 Customer Interaction • Alternative Financing • Error Reduction Health / Self Community Work Entertainment Home Immersive Gaming Customer Support Social Commerce Hands-on Education Virtual Travel Digital Venues Collaborative Meetings Exercise Remote Wellness 3D Healthcare Physical Therapy Virtual Showroom Immersive Shopping 3D Try Before You Buy Sustainability World Exploration Creator Tools Virtual Concerts Real-time Sports Interactive Theater User • Enhanced Brand Recognition • Hyper-personalized Analytics • Digital Twin for Assets • Immersive Commerce • Digital-first Products • New Business Models • Virtual-only Products • Presence Driven Training A few example areas where consumers may benefit User Benefits
- 10. 44 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 IBM & the Metaverse share values & technology Cloud Pak transparent headless hybrid Hybrid Cloud Blockchain AI Driven Supply Chain Security Red Hat Digital Twin iX Experience Orchestrator Watson Assistant IBM Z IBM Analytics Spatial & XR Metaverse +
- 11. 45 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Applications Ecosystem approach Traditional Channels Meta Assist APP Meta Twins APP Meta Branch APP Meta Showcase APP Meta Workplace APP Meta Commerce APP Contact Messaging Physical Store Mobile Web Metaverse Channels Altspace VR Roblox Horizon The Sandbox Decentraland Social Channels Spatial SnapChat WeChat Whatsapp Instagram API & Experience Orchestration Experience Mesh Miraki Marketplace Intelligent Workflows Integration Orchestration Data Fabric AI IoT OpenSea Ethereum Blockchain & NFT Polygon Flow Stripe Payments Zuora Moonpay Experience Platform Service Sales CDP Commerce Content Verse Engine CRM 360 Analytics Marketing Personalize
- 12. Core Use Cases 49 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Meta-Workplace 02 Meta-Commerce 01 A 3D Virtual Storefront for both VR & AR that connects to omni- channel experiences using IBM iX Experience Orchestrator (EXO. 03 Meta-Showcase Enterprise considered 3D virtual worlds that enable employees and/ or customers to meet & collaborate in real-time A 3D virtual customer showcase where customers can meet & explore experiences or products. Meta-Branch 04 Meet and greet customers & employees in a private enterprise 3D virtual space or in public Metaverse platforms to enable rich brand experiences Meta-Twins 05 The ability to represent physical world in digital spaces including Field Worker services, digital factory or Remote Assistance (Ex: data centers) 06 Meta-Assist Meta Assistants are 3D AI powered avatars that integrate with Virtual Assistant technology to provide guided tours, meet & greet, Q&A, assisted buy, and deflection
- 13. 50 Metaverse Commerce A 3D Virtual Storefront for both VR and AR that connects an omni-channel experiences using IBM iX Experience Orchestrator. Metaverse Commerce connects to digital commerce platforms and experience layers digitally & physically. It enables: • Immersive purchase experiences • Geo-spatial physical purchases • Virtual world purchases • NFTs & digital tokens • Meet & Greet & assisted purchase through Meta-Assist Assets Metaverse Store, 3D Assets for Commerce IBM iX Experience Orchestrator, IBM Spatial Design System Experience Nisha, T-Mobile, LVMH, Fendi, Guerlain Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022
- 14. 53 Metaverse Workplace Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Enterprise secured 3D virtual spaces(Web, VR, AR) for employees & customers to meet. Employees can travel to various worlds, collaborate virtually, run design thinking sessions & showcase content. They can bring their own trusted identity & avatar. It enables: • Virtual Meetings • Presence driven design thinking • Team building & virtual office spaces • Education & group learning • Enhanced work experiences Experience • Showcases for Shell, State Bank of India, Heineken, BBC • IBM studio tours and innovation showcases Assets Meta-Assist, 3D Assets, Templated 3D Rooms, Spatial Design
- 15. 55 Metaverse Showcase A 3D virtual customer showcase experiences enabled for brands to meet with customers. Metaverse Showcase allows users to explore products & virtual spaces. It can be enabled via a public or private world through an AR/MR layer or Virtual World: It enables: • Enhanced AR or VR for experiences • Virtual events, award shows, tours & shows… • Configurators, bookings & customer galleries • Q&A experience spaces • Brand exploration & activations Experience Juntendo, LVMH, Fendi, Vodafone, BMW, London Fashion Week* Assets Meta Assist, Templated 3D Rooms and Assets Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022
- 16. 56 Metaverse Branch Optimized virtual spaces for real-time communication and tasks on public platforms & virtual worlds: Metaverse Branch builds on other virtual worlds to tailor directly to customer assisted experiences & education. Meta Assistants are able to integrate with existing chat & bot platforms to aid with complex forms, account opening experience, product information. It enables: • Immersive information • Dedicated virtual space for tasks • Shared assistance & dedicated teaming • Augmented customer support • Virtual assistance & task guidance Experience Nanto Bank Assets Meta Assist, Templated 3D Rooms and Assets Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022
- 17. 58 Metaverse Twins The ability to represent physical world in digital spaces including Field Worker services, digital factory or Remote Assistance (such as data centers). Metaverse Digital Twin spaces can be used to represent virtual data centers, virtual garages or virtual factories. Any space or information systems can be twinned in a digital venue. They enable: • Rich real-time data surfacing • Simulation & data generation • Advanced testing & collaboration • Shared & tracked virtual spaces • IoT visualization Experience BMW, Autostrasse, Bulgari Assets Digital Twins, IBM Experience Orchestrator, Maximo Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022
- 18. Metaverse Assist Virtual Concierge Meet and greet your customers and employees in your enterprise metaverse in collaboration hubs, virtual showcases, virtual branches, virtual worlds (such as decentraland) and showrooms. This can include making appointments, meet/greet and personalized welcomes. Virtual Tours Meta Assistants can integrate with existing virtual assistant technology to provide virtual tours of your virtual showcases. Meta Assistants have knowledge of your products and can answer questions about products, tours or your company with existing Virtual Assistant technology 59 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Interactive Experience Interact with the environment such as PowerPoints, videos to provide an immersive experience Call Deflection Where Meta Assistants cannot help a customer. Human powered virtual assistants with 3D avatars can provide exceptional experience integrated with your contact centre and CRM Platforms VR (Unity + Oculus App Store), AR, Mobile, Web, Decentraland, Altspace VR
- 19. Metaverse Assist 60 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Intents In order to support specific conversation flows and actions industry specific intents (such as retail banking) can be used to support interactions with the virtual assistants. They can of course be custom developed. Intents inform actions such as Pay Bill. Natural Language Understanding A natural language understanding capability for the appropriate virtual assistant (such as Watson) is used to understand the conversation. Q&A Q&A AI can be used to support FAQ type information whether its long form or short form content. Dialog Flow The ability to configure dialogs to support conversation is required. All of these capabilities are provided by virtual assistant technology such as IBM Watson AR / VR Specifics Although it may be tempting to think that you can use the same dialog as you would use for a text chat. Speech is more nuanced. In order to convey the right message, emphasis must be placed on the correct words and sentences must be written with correct tone of voice and to support natural conversations. It is likely that AR/VR specific dialog will be created to support these channels
- 20. 61 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Communicate Speech to Text Our Meta Assistants can understand voice interactions through the use of “Speech to Text” AI. This uses either Watson Speech to Text on IBM Cloud or any cloud platform including Azure, AWS, Google or through industry models provided through HuggingFace. Industry domain models can be used to understand domain specific terms. Text to Speech Our Meta Assistants can provide realistic speech through “Text to Speech” AI and neural voices. This can be through Watson or any Cloud AI solution or HuggingFace model. SSML providers are preferred. Facial Animations Meta Assistants on mobile and VR channels are able to perform facial sync’ing using Meta LipSync coordinating lip movements with Audio. How it Works Our Meta Assistants real-time convert incoming conversations using Text to Speech, and then hand-off the conversation to the Virtual Assistant. The assistant uses Mixamo animations and Facial expressions to convey appropriate interest and emotion. Once a response has been received from the Virtual assistant then using Speech to Text convey the response.
- 21. 69 Metaverse Design Thinking Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 IBM Design Thinking A human centered approach to develop solutions with the RT3D and the Metaverse in mind. Our process keeps to business outcomes without relying on any one technology to understand people’s needs, form intent, & deliver at speed and scale.
- 22. 71 Design Lab Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Pain Points & Golden Thread Day 1 Align users, technical and business teams to ensure clarity and priority Sketches & Low Fidelity Iterate quickly on structure, key features, and platforms while validating technical viability High Fidelity & Next Steps Establish user champions. Confirm business & technical team impact & adoption. IBM Design Lab A multi-day intensive to quickly generate prototypes and functional interactions. Unlike Design Thinking, this focuses in on a single problem or area and generates usable artifacts for further exploration. Day 2 Day 3
- 23. 72 IBM Garage Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Where innovation and transformation come together IBM Garage is a framework for accelerating digital transformation. It helps you generate innovative ideas and equips you with the practices, technologies and expertise to turn those ideas into business value in weeks. When you work with IBM Garage you bring customer pain points into focus. You empower your team to take manageable risks. You adopt leading technologies, speed up solution development and measure the value of everything you do.
- 24. 73 IBM Garage Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 1. Co-Create What is it? A combined team of diverse subject matter experts are immersed in intensive design thinking & research activities to expose the best available opportunities. What is the goal? Establish alignment on a ‘big idea’ to address the specific pain points of single or group of end users while creating a vision for a minimal viable product (MVP)
- 25. 74 IBM Garage Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 2. Co-Execute What is it? A solution development cycle that uses Agile & DevOp practices to quickly launch & test MVPs while still capitalizing on IBM’s business & technology expertise - including hybrid cloud & AI and best leveraging IBM & partner product services & portfolios. What is the goal? Validate & improve the MVPs value in the marketplace through an iterative process of testing, measuring, & re-launching.
- 26. 75 IBM Garage Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 3. Co-Operate What is it? Harden & sale the now robust solution. Meet the needs & requirements to enable a new culture of innovation. Bring those needs across the enterprise. What is the goal? Expand DevOps practices & cloud adoption to broaden feature sets, stress test code, strengthen security & resilience, deploy solutions widely, and expand capabilities. Empower the enterprise with confidence to continue innovation and transformation.
- 27. IBM Metaverse Garage 76 Spatial & Metaverse 15 August 2022 Integrated vision, roadmap & business case Prioritize assets & use cases for first MVP Deploy, Capture Business Outcomes & Iterate Deploy, Capture Business Outcomes & Iterate Scale & Iterate Scaled experiences across multiple categories Built to Scale End-to-end strategic vision + Co-execute on use cases + Operationalized technology for industry use cases + iterative approach grounded in clarity of purpose. Engage cross-functional teams to create an end- to-end vision for transformation ID expansion categories & enhance existing architecture for scale Engage external partners to validate & infuse RT3D skills, up skill teams for needed APIs, libs & applications. Establish a framework for ongoing continuous optimization & intake Expert check-ins to capture maximum value Initial Assets Expand Case Refine Exp. Periodically assess opportunities for capturing value The Right Teams Industry experts + External support + 3D designers + RT3D & XR developers + Data scientists + Architects