Although many of us may only have just got around to fully understanding what the metaverse is, apparently the solution to today's hybrid working woes is actually the "intraverse".
The Register has reported from Gartner's Symposium event in Australia, where the intraverse was described as, "an interactive space that melds an intranet and a metaverse".
Gartner reportedly encouraged attendees to not "think of a metaverse as a single thing to build", but instead "a collection of techs such as augmented reality to be used as a training or collaboration environment, or a way to add AI avatars as a customer service option".
Why do we need this?
Gartner's analysts highlighted how balancing employees' desire for remote work with their own desire to have employees in the office some of the time to boost collaboration was clashing.
The speakers also highlighted how modern candidates are likely to pass up jobs where the IT systems look to be outdated.
But, if companies are highly visible about their implementation of the intraverse, techsavvy employees "will know that you tried", in the words of Gartner research president Tina Nunno.
It's not just Gartner who is banking on the convergence of the workplace with the metaverse.
Meetaverse, from Allseated, is a browser-based 3D meeting platform launched in 2022.
Meetaverse is designed for browsers, not VR headsets, and offered hybrid workers 10,000 fully rendered 3D objects they can drop into a 3D environment.
The rise of the intraverse isn't the only prediction that Gartner had for the attendees. Speakers also touched on the idea of a "protection level agreement", where the IT team and line of business agree on a certain level of security, in exchange for a certain level of resources.
The analysts argue this approach could be a worthwhile alternative to IT spending as it avoids "spending the same amount of money on a tool that improves its capabilities but might deliver an outcome a business does not need".
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