the vehicle, which in turn would develop simulations to track driving conditions and other factors influencing autonomous driving. “What the metaverse can add is to give these companies a way to simulate a passenger’s actual experiences of riding in their autonomous vehicles, allowing ongoing adjustments to eliminate or significantly reduce the prospect of mishaps or discomfort,” MacDuffie said. Reimagining the Future of Work Well before metaverse entered the vocabulary of work environments, the Covid pandemic had prepared businesses and talent teams for virtual meetings. The enhancements the metaverse promises around the workplace are potentially transformative, although it is still an evolving space. A Zoom call is an advancement over a regular phone call in that it “gives us a bit of body language, but it's still two-dimensional,” MacDuffie said. “But if we were meeting in a metaverse room, we would have more of a sense of actually being in each other's physical presence. We would be able to see facial expressions much more fully and with more nuance. We would hear people spatially existing in a space that would conjure up being in a room together. The basic premises of the metaverse is that when more of our senses are engaged, our experience becomes closer to real life.” That higher level of engagement can lead to better communication, with emotions being more fully conveyed and more accurately perceived, MacDuffie added. “People can pick up on each other's excitement if they're having a great brainstorming or collaborating on a project.” Already companies like Meta and Microsoft are adding metaverse functionalities to their meeting rooms.