Global Supertrends Conference 2022

The opening keynote at the 10th Credit Suisse Global Supertrends Conference featured one of the technology sector’s prominent figures, Randi Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media, who shared her views with CNBC anchor Martin Soong on the growing prominence of the metaverse, which has been described as the next, more immersive, iteration of the Internet.

While there is still no clear consensus on what makes up the metaverse, Ms. Zuckerberg believed that the metaverse will likely be made up of many different digital worlds covering not only gaming, but also real estate, education and art and culture. 

For the metaverse to gain mainstream consumer acceptance, however, it needs to become far more user-friendly, offer more security and provide users the ability to securely move their digital assets between different virtual platforms.

“In order to truly unlock the potential we're going to need to figure out a system where there's interoperability. It will be hard to get there because there's no company that's running a metaverse that wants to give up that control or share that ownership,” said Ms. Zuckerberg.

On the hot topic of virtual real estate in the metaverse, she noted that its success will depend on how scarce the asset is. She also believed that there could be big opportunities in the metaverse for sectors such as education, healthcare and ecommerce.