If the metaverse and crypto-assets are no longer popular, generative AI could establish itself in 2023 as the new technological trend to be seized.
End 2021, Marketing wondered if the metaverse and NFTs would not be the flops of 2022. Even as the valuation of crypto-assets then peaked, Twitter adopted non-fungible profile pictures, and Facebook became Meta, entered a new era of the internet.
As for brands, everyone wanted to launch their own NFT collectionand the slightest game operation became a pretext for a sensational entry into the metaverse… Twelve months later, the enthusiasm has really waned. Like the Bitcoin course, still recently affected by the FTX scandal. For his part, Meta sacrificed its profitability, its cash flow and 11,000 employees in developing Horizon Worlds, which attracted fewer than 200,000 users in late October, far from the 500,000 hoped for. And what about Twitter? A double page would not be enough.
Lack of qualification
One might therefore think that we were right. Yet no. These errors should be qualified: the adoption of these innovations occurs in fits and starts and, after the euphoria, the economic context supports sobriety. Gartner, famous for its hype curve, evokes the maturity of the metaverse for 2030. And the same experts still struggle to agree on the definition of the metaverse or on the potential of Web3!
“For now, experiences designated as representative of the ‘metaverse’ are deceptive. As far as Web3 is concerned, buying crypto-assets may seem expensive to the vast majority of consumers”summarizes Maria Mercanti-Guérin, professor-researcher in Digital Marketing at the IAE in Paris and at the Sorbonne Business School.
“Hence the slow adoption of these topics and the feeling that the big companies are the only ones who want us to get involved.” She is joined by Sébastien Badault, Ledger’s VP Marketing and Web3: “The Internet bubble, then the subprime crisis each time gave new impetus to the development of the Web. For my part, I don’t believe in the logic of an immersive world. I don’t think that’s what people are looking for for now we will see the development first of hybrid approaches, with more virtual in the physical world, and vice versa.”
In his forecasts for 2023, Forrester evokes this use of mixed reality in the professional field, through meetings of avatars working on 3D models. But he believes that the general public’s appetite for immersive virtual experiences has decreased with the end of the confinements… Which also explains the decline in online shopping. But despite all this, can we predict the end of e-commerce?
Similarly, again according to Forrester, 80% of French people are not particularly interested in NFTs. But which French and which NFTs? NFTs perhaps the winners will be those that will not be identified as such and that will allow “token gating”, i.e. access to content or benefits reserved for their owner, such as the Nike Swoosh platform.
More, the drop in crypto-asset prices should encourage the development of less speculative uses to involve younger people. “The price drop has no impact on the group’s strategy. We remain focused on the long term and are building the infrastructure that will allow us to be ready when the ecosystem is developed for the general public.“, assures Nicolas Joly, director of merger and acquisition projects of the Casino group. Stéphanie Zolesio, general manager of Casino Immobilier, completes: “We believe the metaverse is a new place for consumers to meet and that NFTs are a new means of developing customer relationships.” Will we one day see the development of a “Web3 CRM” based on the NFTs stored in our wallet, or will the latter become a unique identifier for our online browsing? Hard to tell.
AI what?
“The most obvious opportunity is in digital twins”says Julien Pillot, teacher-researcher at INSEEC, referring to replicas that allow surgeons, firefighters or even special forces to train in virtual environments before taking action. “The Oasis of Ready Player One is still a fantasy to attract investment. Even if Horizon World and the other playful metaverses are unsuccessful, the money invested in these projects will get advanced research in AR/VR, artificial intelligence (AI) or haptic feedback, creating new solutions and many jobs too!”, judge the economist. And indeed, we must highlight the progress made in 2022 in terms of generative AI.
AI what? Get ready, it seems hard for you to escape in 2023. Already used in the creative and marketing industries to add or remove new elements in images or even replace actors as part of morphing, Artificial intelligence is now able to generate content on its own, based on a “prompt”, a natural language command.
Another revolution: some platforms are accessible in open source and on mobile.
Something to enhance its use, and revive the eternal debate about the end of the DA… “You should rather look at these tools as a way to save time creating moodboards, for example, to focus on the concept and creative idea. The development of cameras on smartphones hasn’t killed the photographer’s work”, reassures Mélanie Pennec, Executive Creative Director of DDB Paris. She is joined by David Raichman, her counterpart at Ogilvy Paris. She uses generative AI to power her Instagram account @davethepreacher and is behind the recent “The Milkmaid Imagined by AI” campaign for Nestlé, in which Vermeer’s work has been reinvented using the DALL-E Outpainting feature: “The use of artificial intelligence is not new. The revolution rather lies in the possibility of combining different AIs to quickly generate text, sound and image. After emojis and memes, our way of communicating online will be reinvented.”
But even in this case the road will be long. First, because those who can master the tips for creating professional quality results are rare. Secondly, because many ethical questions arise on the use of databases or on the property right of the generated creations. After the metaverse and the NFTs, AI should therefore also be a pretext for large PR operations in 2023, before seeing more structuring uses develop in the years to come, in a context that increasingly favors decentralization, interoperability and the creator economy… See you in a year to invalidate these predictions!
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