The metaverse (2021) is dead. Long live the metaverse (2025). But what is the metaverse exactly, and what has it become? In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg outlined a grand vision for a future internet that was fully immersive, taking place in a video game-like 3D world, while everyone accessed this world using virtual reality (VR) headsets that would replace modern computers.1 In 2022, Citigroup forecast a $8–$13 trillion market valuation by 2030.2 The analysis noted that a completely realized metaverse would need a 1,000x jump in computational efficiency to meet its ambitions.
A year after the COVID-19 pandemic began, remote and hybrid work had become the norm. In this era, the metaverse seemed like a more natural extension of where technology could go, while still fitting into a remote/hybrid paradigm of work and consumer culture. However, the metaverse never really took off as expected. YouTuber Marques Brownlee noted that metaverse avatars were visually regressive and cringey to behold, and Meta failed to demonstrate many of its more useful features such as VR-simulated multiscreen workspaces.3 ChatGPT launched to the public at the end of 2022 and ever since, generative AI (GenAI) has taken over as the presumed “next big thing” in tech, leaving the metaverse in the dust. In 2025, Meta’s Reality Labs division, the R&D wing charged with creating the Metaverse, posted cumulative operating losses totaling $70 billion.4
A Metaverse for Every Niche, a Niche for Every Industry
But the metaverse isn’t truly dead. Enterprises are looking at VR’s potential to help train workers or plan for challenging scenarios in so-called micro-metaverses. One startup is using GenAI in combination with VR to help lawyers rehearse arguments while getting improvised responses from AI, or to help law enforcement officers practice de-escalation in simulated settings. The company claims they can deliver the equivalent of three years’ field experience in just 18 hours of virtual practice.5
Augmented reality (AR) and VR are becoming niche, but every industry seems to have a niche that needs filling. For example, many organizations offer VR to help train medical practitioners and surgeons with the opportunity to digitally interact with medically accurate anatomy—videos of which are not for the squeamish or faint of heart. GenAI will likely accelerate content creation to support more of these micro-metaverses, especially if our ability to interact with virtual worlds can somehow become more granular and fine-tuned.
Gesturing at the Future Through Rose-Tinted AI Glasses
In the last two years, we’ve seen the launch of the Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Ray-Ban Display, arguably the most advanced offerings in AR/VR headsets and smart glasses to date. Not only can the Apple Vision Pro lock fully interactive app windows across X-Y-Z dimensions in physical space, but it also uses gesture controls to support text input from the end user who is doodling letters on any random surface.6
Among other features, the Meta Ray-Ban Display uses AI to generate live captions for any conversation the user has with another person, with translation capabilities if the participants speak different languages. The smart glasses also take user input through a wristband that measures bioelectrical signals in the wearer’s forearm when they make certain gestures.7
These devices perhaps represent the true legacy of the Metaverse’s earlier, ill-fated voyage, and they also change the way we translate physical interaction into digital spaces, and vice versa.
The Elephant in the VR Room
Let’s not forget the internet originally began as small, decentralized networks such as ARPANET at various universities and research groups, and it took decades to become a unified, global fabric. As micro-metaverses proliferate, aided by GenAI and evolving controls that make digital and physical interaction more seamless, it’s possible that the Metaverse could still fulfill its original design. Meta’s failure might have simply resulted from the company trying to eat the proverbial elephant whole rather than one bite at a time.
But as one of the five MAMAA companies that dominate the S&P500, Meta has a mandate to eat elephants whole and produce big, industry-disrupting wins. In a recent interview about the Meta Ray-Ban Display, Zuckerberg stated, “If all we get is all the people of the world who wear glasses to upgrade to glasses with AI in them, then this is already going to be one of the most successful products in the history of the world.”8
“All the people who wear glasses” sure sounds like an exaggerated bite. Time will tell if Meta is successful at standardizing AI eyewear, but it may end up becoming a smaller piece of the larger metaverse puzzle. If VR worlds are allowed to grow outside the pressure cooker of the speculative hype cycle, who’s to say the metaverse (2029) might not end up looking more like the metaverse (2021) that Zuckerberg originally outlined?
- The Guardian, Enter the metaverse: the digital future Mark Zuckerberg is steering us toward, Oct 2021.
- Citi, Metaverse and Money, March 2022.
- Marques Brownlee, Who Cares About the Metaverse?, Oct 2022.
- CNBC, The metaverse as we knew it failed, but it’s being resurrected for new worlds, Jun 2025.
- Ibid.
- Marques Brownlee, Using Apple Vision Pro: What It’s Actually Like!, Jan 2024.
- Marques Brownlee, Wait… Smart Glasses are Suddenly Good?, Sep 2025.
- CNBC, Why Meta is willing to lose billions on the metaverse, Dec 2024.
