While the consumer metaverse growth potential has attracted much of the media attention, it's the commercial apps growth trajectory that has gained the focus of savvy IT vendors.
The enterprise metaverse opportunity -- including immersive collaboration, digital twin, and simulation software and services revenue -- will approach $60 billion in revenue by 2030.
Additional revenue from the augmented and virtual reality market would add billions in new growth for software and services.
Enterprise Metaverse Market Development
"The metaverse, being a long-term vision, means the buildup to this future is just as intriguing as the final product, and in this regard, it is the enterprise markets that are leading ahead of the consumer segment," said Michael Inouye, principal analyst at ABI Research.
For example, efforts on the standardization front are being driven through the enterprise space. The Digital Twin Consortium directly targets industrial, while the Metaverse Standards Forum and Universal Scene Description support the entire metaverse.
Early traction and development have targeted the enterprise – NVIDIA's Omniverse platform has seen solid industry support and early traction within the enterprise markets, due to accessibility through Omniverse Cloud.
The transition to Enterprise 3D also predates the recent attention to the metaverse. In this case, the augmented and virtual reality market, along with simulations and digital twins, represent solid foundations and growth opportunities.
However, perhaps more importantly, these industries are already focusing on related business technology interoperability and standardization. Both are required to stimulate further growth.
"The enterprise metaverse deserves more attention than it receives. The enterprise segment has a higher order of diversity, owing to different industry targets and a more fragmented customer base," Inouye adds.
A retail metaverse tends to focus on the customer experience (CX), with companies like UneeQ and Soul Machines focused on digital humans. Others, such as Touchcast, offer immersive interactions, and TechSparq is focused on virtual shopping.
According to the ABI assessment, there is also a higher order of maturity with pre-existing enterprise markets and digital transformations, such as migrations to cloud computing services.
For example, the digital twin and simulation market has established leaders such as Altair, Ansys, Autodesk, Dassault Systemes, Presagis, PTC, and Siemens.
Along with more innovation-leaning companies, like cloud specialists SimScale, they are helping organizations through their respective digital business transformation journies.
The enterprise metaverse has many advantages, from distributed workforces to digital transformations, and benefits from more stringent ROI, plus it already has the momentum to drive growth.
Outlook for Commercial Metaverse Applications Growth
"The industry needs to continue working on and coalescing around key standards and best practices. While expectations do vary broadly, the enterprise metaverse is better positioned to exceed early market forecasts," Inouye concludes.
That said, I'm currently interested in the upside opportunities for employee experience applications that enhance online workflow automation and help to fuel increased worker productivity.
The potential for the industrial sector and frontline employee experience is significant. Harnessing these market development opportunities requires digital workspace solution innovation.