All communications technologies have an inherent limitation in that they cannot replace the power of face-to-face meetings. “We evolved over millennia to be extremely good at and dependent on reading social cues from face-to-face proximity,” MacDuffie said. “That is why face-to-face is still what we imagine to be the gold standard for really effective communication, and creativity and collaboration.” Another metaverse application in work-related communications is the ability for people to use avatars, MacDuffie continued. People could use one of several avatars for an informal meeting, and another for formal settings, he explained. “It potentially frees you from the constraints of just our one body or one personality, or things that people know of us.” To be sure, there are concerns over interactions with avatars, especially when the people behind them are unidentified. MacDuffie pointed to examples of people being harassed in the metaverse. “All of the bad behaviors that people can do face-to-face, they can certainly do in the metaverse, as they can do on social media and everywhere else. Maybe the greater immersiveness and the greater engagement of the senses can make some of that worse or cause a more negative impact.” Easing Payments with Digital Wallets and Tokenization Digital wallets are an important way the metaverse will play out in business settings, according to David Treat, senior managing director at Accenture, who leads its metaverse business, including its activities in blockchain and extended reality. Digital wallets will change marketing, branding, onboarding customers and managing those relationships, how we shop, collaborate, and make products, he remarked at a recent Mack Institute for Innovation Management conference on the metaverse.