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The Dream of the Metaverse Is Dying. Manufacturing Is Keeping It Alive
Forget Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of VR meetings; the industrial metaverse bridges digital and physical worlds in a way that’s actually useful.
It used to be that when BMW would refit a factory to build a new car, the only way the automaker could check if the chassis would fit through the production line was to fly a team out and physically push the body through the process, making note of any snags. Forget sending your avatar to virtual meetings with remote colleagues or poker nights with distant friends, as Mark Zuckerberg envisioned in 2021 when he changed Facebook’s name to Meta; the metaverse idea has found its killer app in manufacturing. Early versions of the virtual factory even had gaming-style WASD keyboard navigation, but this was dropped in favor of a click-based interface akin to exploring Google Street View in a browser, so anyone could easily find their way.
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