Work meetings may soon be turned upside down, revealed American billionaire Bill Gates. In a follow-up to a post he made days ago on his personal blog, the Microsoft founder predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic would bring about a fundamental and lasting change in the workplace, particularly as several companies have adopted remote work systems. He further explained that remote work will only draw more people to the "metaverse," recently announced by Meta (formerly Facebook).
Gates also speculated that most virtual meetings in the next two to three years will shift from two-dimensional camera networks to the metaverse, which is a three-dimensional space with digital avatars. He noted that the current two-dimensional network, which he compared to the game program "Hollywood Squares," is what we currently receive from most video meeting platforms, such as Zoom and Microsoft's Teams. However, the metaverse will provide a three-dimensional avatar capable of attending meetings in a virtual office space or other locations, allowing for interaction with colleagues' avatars.
He explained, "The idea is that you will eventually use your avatar to meet people in a virtual space, as if you are with them in a physical room, but users will have to wear virtual reality headsets or goggles to do so." Additionally, Gates announced that his company is working on adding three-dimensional avatars and other metaverse-compatible elements to Microsoft's Teams program, suggesting that Teams currently has a clear level of access to the metaverse, following his company's partnership with Mark Zuckerberg and Meta to make the Facebook social network compatible with Teams.
