Companies race to build “digital twins” in the metaverse

Like the metavers expanding rapidly, large companies and brands are picking up the tools needed to fill the virtual void and deliver immersive online experiences.

Adobe, known for its photo and video editing software, released a “metavers playbook” on Tuesday and announced collaborations with Coca Cola, NASCAR, Epic Games and NVIDIA on a number of metavers-related projects. Adobe told CBS MoneyWatch that hundreds of brands are already using their existing 3D tools to create interactive content, adding that demand for tools used to create photorealistic replicas of their products has grown 100% from a year ago. .

“We have a very diverse group of customers and they are all trying to establish their standard workflow to reach high-fidelity digital products,” said Stephano Corazza, head of augmented reality at Adobe. “The only thing they have in common is the need to create digital twins for all the products that the brand represents.”

A “digital twin” is a virtual replica of a real-world product, store, or factory. In the metavers, it can be used tor simulate a real-world shopping experience. Experts say that pairing digital replicas with physical products and services also helps with data analytics and allows companies to run simulations using real-life scenarios before making costly decisions.

According to research firm Technavio, the digital twins market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of nearly 40% between 2020 and 2025 to nearly $ 25 billion. Research by the search engine Adzuna shows that the number of jobseekers looking for candidates with experience in metavers has increased by almost 400% compared to October. Major industries currently recruiting metavers experts include creative design, advertising, and marketing.

Corazza told CBS News that while brands used to come out with two-dimensional content on traditional websites, the metavers makes the need for three-dimensional interactive content a “total necessity for major businesses.”

Richard Kerris, vice president of Omniverse at NVIDIA, said all companies will soon have a “digital twin strategy.” Kerris said that beyond social media, shopping and entertainment, the industrial goods sector is experiencing the biggest shake-up of metavers expansion.

“True to reality”

German carmaker BMW used NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform to create a digital twin for its factory and optimize production time and costs. BMW produces 2.5 million cars a year and 99% of them are customized. With 100 options for every car and over 40 BMW models, there are over 2,000 ways to set up a new BMW.

By creating a digital twin of his factory, Kerris said BMW is able to virtually simulate what it’s like to have 300 cars running on a conveyor belt and identify which roads around the factory are safest for employees during a shift.

“The difference between now and then is that we don’t have one a platform that obeys the laws of physics and obeys real presentation scenarios to reality, so it’s not just an approximation, it’s not just a representation, it’s actually something that is true to reality, ”he said. dir Kerris.

Lockheed Martin also uses NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform. Companies teamed up in November to make a digital twin of the forest fire zones in California. The visualizations help fire behavior analysts model their predictions in a complex virtual simulation of the environment, helping firefighters fight flames in real life.

“If you’re a store operator or a retailer, you’ll want a digital twin to understand the layout of your products and the flow of people to your facility,” Kerris said, adding that eventually everyone will also have a twin. digital. of his house “in the same way that we have a set of plans.”

David Whelan, CEO of Engage XR, a metaverser company that provides a platform for more than 160 organizations and companies to hold immersive meetings, virtual events and company-wide training sessions, said their number of customers is grow by 50% in the last four months.

Whelan said the Engage platform was originally designed for educators. Stanford University partnered with the company last year to give a seminar on virtual reality called “Virtual People,” part of which was held in an immersive space with virtual reality headsets.

Whelan said more companies are now finding ways to take advantage of marketing opportunities within the metavers while connecting with their own employees in new ways.

“You have to give people a completely different experience to it,” he said.

Metavers is largely based on a video game engine, as many of the tools that feed metamons have been used by game designers for decades. Whelan said that metavers currently exist in the gaming world in the form of immersive gaming experiences aimed at younger audiences.

He explained that more companies are jumping on the bandwagon because it is an opportunity to gain brand recognition with a younger audience that is growing in immersive worlds.

“In the mid-1990s, big brands and companies had to prepare for the Internet. We are now at the same stage where they need to prepare for the metavers,” Whelan said.