Metaverse to disrupt transportation sector: Gartner Maverick Research

Gartner’s research incubator Maverick Research predicts that the transportation sector will be disrupted by a drop in mobility needs in the next 15 years coinciding with the growth of the metaverse.

The research findings predict that more than half of individual travel needs may be eliminated by the metaverse’s advanced collaboration capabilities, through machine-to-human (M2H) and machine-to-machine (M2M) interactions.

Gartner defines a metaverse as, “A collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. A metaverse is persistent, providing enhanced immersive experiences.”

According to the report, transportation companies may need to consider transforming their business model as individuals and organisations adopt metaverse technologies and perform physical tasks remotely.

Workers will be able to remotely control autonomous robots to take actions such as assembling or repairing products, more advanced forms of e-commerce will encourage virtual shopping and individuals will be able to travel to remote locations using virtual reality, largely eliminating the need for travel.

“This means the metaverse can free humans from the burden of traveling for anything else, but fun or personal preference, besides becoming the main solution to minimise transportation-related emissions, energy consumption and road congestion.,” the report said.

“As a result, a substantial part of the funds that governments, companies and individuals currently allocate to transportation and to the mitigation of transportation-related problems could be allocated to the metaverse.”

CIOs need to get ahead when it comes to embracing the metaverse, in order to radically change the company’s mindset, business model and go-to-market strategy the research reveals.
Gartner’s Maverick Research encourages CIOs to:

• Consider the metaverse as the main solution for addressing mobility needs
• Build an internal metaverse team
• Develop metaverse capabilities including AR and, IoT and AI

“It will take a considerable amount of time for a holistic and all-encompassing metaverse platform to emerge and disrupt the transportation ecosystem. However, leading companies who play a key role in disruptive innovation have started by building a strong vision, and subsequently, brought it to reality before their competitors,” the report said.

“As such, this is where transportation CIOs have to start in order to put their organization in pole position."