It’s 2020: the metaverse is on everyone’s lips, it’s the future of the internet and the web, huge investments are being made and some businesses are even changing their world-famous names to fit in with this new world.
But where are we today?
The exciting thing about the tech world is that, at regular intervals, it offers us a major innovation designed to change the world. But it is also annoying that each of these innovations is immediately swept away by another and sinks into oblivion while we are summoned to get excited about the next one, on pain of dying if you are a business or becoming obsolete if you are an employee.
But what happens to these innovations that are forgotten as quickly as they were forgotten? Sometimes they disappear completely, but more often than not they continue on their merry way, far from the spotlight of the hype, and we realize that they have finally found their place, slowly but surely, confirming that we always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.
Far from passion, they have found a place, often more modest than initially expected, but which is ultimately their rightful place once the debate has been depassionated and marketing ceases to inflate expectations disproportionately.
Who still talks about the Metaverse today? Nobody. We are in the age of AI and everything that came before is outdated until the next innovation. Is it dead? Let’s just say that it has come of age, that nothing could do it more good and that if we wanted to, we would have things to learn from it.
In short
- In 2020, the metaverse becomes a priority for the tech industry, supported by massive investments and promises of transformation.
- Despite technical advances, the metaverse does not find its audience, limited by expensive equipment and uncertain uses.
- Some sectors such as gaming and training adopt the metaverse, while the general public turns away from it.
- With the rise of AI, businesses and investors are reorienting their priorities and relegating the metaverse to the background.
- The history of the metaverse is a reminder that media enthusiasm for technology often exceeds reality and can raise questions about the future of AI.
The metaverse was of course based on technologies that supported an economic promise.
From a technological point of view, there were things like advanced 3D engines (Unreal Engine, Unity) to create immersive environments, extended reality (XR) technologies (AR/VR/MR), with headsets such as Meta’s Quest or Apple’s Vision Pro, blockchain to guarantee the authenticity of digital assets and massive computing power to manage persistent and interoperable worlds.
The economic expectations were enticing.
First of all, a digital market with cryptocurrency transactions and virtual goods (NFTs, digital real estate, personalized avatars, etc.). For businesses, the metaverse was supposed to be a lever for transformation with virtual workspaces, immersive e-commerce and totally new customer experiences, and finally an evolution of collaborative work, with VR meetings and training sessions supposed to replace Zoom and Teams.
A promise far from being kept despite the investments made
It cannot be said that the metaverse lacked resources. Some companies such as Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia have invested heavily, but with more than mixed results.
According to a Sortlist study conducted in 2022, 33% of businesses said they invested 10 to 20% of their overall budget in the metaverse, but only 26% expected a return on investment, while 17% were mainly aiming for data collection ([FR]9 out of 10 businesses are accelerating their investments in the metaverse).
To mention only the main promoter of AI, Meta has invested more than 80 billion dollars in the development of technologies related to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), but in 2024, its Reality Labs division generated 2.1 billion dollars in revenue, but recorded losses amounting to 17.7 billion dollars. Despite everything, they still seem to believe in it (Meta’s investment in VR and smart glasses on track to top $100bn).
In terms of B2B uses, the metaverse is not a total failure, with solid use cases in the field of training, but the new virtual work environments and collaborative devices have not found their market.
As for B2C, we can speak of a blatant failure.
The metaverse has not replaced the internet as advertised, but, above all, there is not the slightest indication that it ever will. The hardware, with bulky and expensive headsets, is a major obstacle, but it is not the only one.
Finally, there are few concrete examples of use outside the world of gaming (Roblox, Fortnite, VRChat): mainstream Metaverse experiences remain anecdotal.
To make matters worse, the NFT and cryptocurrency market, which was supposed to support its economy, has collapsed (The Rise And Fall Of NFTs: What Went Wrong? and The Crypto Crash of 2025: What Happened, Why It Matters, and What Comes Next) and the outlook remains bleak (Activist investor Elliott Management says crypto is facing an ‘inevitable collapse’ after its ‘perceived proximity to the White House’ inflated a bubble).
The reasons for one major failure and a few minor successes
Let’s repeat: the metaverse is not a total failure: there are communities that function well in the gaming world and some B2C use cases, such as in the training world, are satisfactory.
Let us remember, and this should make us think in the age of AI, that at the time [FR] Statista analysts forecast a turnover of more than 191 billion dollars for e-commerce by 2030, in particular because of the experiences made possible by the metaverse, that McKinsey estimated that the potential value of the metaverse could reach 5 trillion dollars and that Citigroup predicted a valuation of the metaverse of between 8 and 13 trillion dollars (Lessons From the Catastrophic Failure of the Metaverse).
But there were too many obstacles to overcome or the promise was a little too ambitious.
First of all, the economic model of the metaverse was flawed, highly speculative (NFT) and required very expensive infrastructure.
Secondly, and this is rarely forgivable, the user experiences were disappointing: unintuitive interfaces, disappointing graphics and lack of interoperability put off non-geeks from the start and then bored the geeks themselves.
Nor was there any compelling use case or killer app like ChatGPT for AI. Nothing justified massive use of the metaverse, and even the novelty and curiosity effect played very little role.
In the end, we had an offer that simply did not meet its market: both businesses and the general public prefer simple and unconstraining solutions, not to mention prohibitive prices.
To make matters worse, AI arrived and took everything in its path with a wow effect, a killer app and concrete use cases. Not only has the public’s highly fickle attention shifted to AI…but so have investments. Or perhaps it is the disaffection for the metaverse that has left room and capital for AI?
Can AI save the metaverse?
If we want to be optimistic and positive, we can grab hold of a fragile lifeline and tell ourselves that AI has not killed the metaverse but has only changed the priorities. When we have reached a certain maturity on AI, we will return to the metaverse. Unless something comes along in the meantime…
That said, it is not unreasonable to think that AI can improve the metaverse by automating the creation of 3D content, making interactions more natural (intelligent NPCs, animated avatars) and optimizing immersive experiences. But for that to happen, someone still has to want to develop the metaverse beyond the use cases that work today.
But for those who still want to believe in it, there are various runways to consider.
To begin with, we are hearing about a more intelligent and accessible metaverse thanks to generative AI, which will be able to create entire worlds without the need for huge development teams.
There are also proponents of mixed experiences (hybrids of AI and metaverses) rather than a fully-fledged virtual world. It is true that augmented reality seems more promising than virtual reality (Apple Vision Pro), but that is not the only reason for its commercial success.
We can also consider a 100% B2B pivot towards areas such as industry 4.0, training, simulation and remote maintenance. But it seems to me that these markets are known and addressed, so the salvation of the metaverse lies in hypothetical use cases that no one has thought of yet.
The same goes for gaming. We know it works, but is it enough to revive an entire industry? I doubt it.
Bottom line
Although no one talks about the metaverse anymore and it is generally considered a failure, things are not so negative: as we have seen, there are cases of uses that work. The problem with the metaverse is that it has been the victim of an excessive hype cycle and unreasonable expectations.
Today it is relegated far behind AI and it is hard to believe that tomorrow it could finally adapt to real needs and make itself as indispensable as it has become.
But perhaps we should learn from this fleeting hype because tomorrow questions will also arise for AI and there is no guarantee that the answers will be so positive ([FR]No, generative AI is not free, so who is going to pay and for what? and AI and jobs: why I don’t believe in the “great replacement” of humans by machines).
