Retail
virtual world. We are creating immersive experiences that connect and inspire around cultural moments that matter from meet and greets, gamified gatherings, team building events and more. For example, the LinkedIn Lounge is a space to
recruit, network, and engage with teams, partners and clients. We also host events, educational sessions, and gamified gatherings to build community and connections.
Accelerate insights, reduce costs and increase monetisation opportunities Our virtual test labs empower brands to create virtual experiences and digital twins to test and learn new products, marketing content, new stream media opportunities, retail innovations and more. In addition, rapid prototype concepts can go through consumer testing before committing to large physical activations reducing research and development costs. For example, we teamed up with a brand to create a virtual test lab that provided more accessibility for more inclusive participation in product and marketing testing ultimately saving around 70% in costs and increasing participation by over 300%. When it comes to purchasing physical products, brands often have questions about how delivery and fulfilment can be achieved with the technology currently available. In our Merkle virtual retail lab we are able to rapidly prototype demos for our ShopNXT suite of retail innovations Scan & Know, and UnboxIt for brands to explore.
Reinventing retail and connected shopping experiences The metaverse is estimated to grow to a $5 trillion opportunity by 2030, with ecommerce the greatest force at $2.6 trillion. Retailers who provide virtual shopping environments can see increased ROI by 450% and with over a quarter of Americans saying virtual goods are more valuable than physical goods there are opportunities to create new revenue streams for brands. We are working with brands to create new ways to educate, entertain and transact while driving registrations, in-store traffic, sampling, and sales via custom product launches, virtual explorations, and personalised shopping experiences integrated into a brand’s existing website, customer profiles, and loyalty programs.
Amplify assistance anytime anywhere According a report by IBM, AI-infused virtual agents can cut labour costs by reducing the reliance on human intervention – leading to as much as 30% decline in customer support service fees. Chatbots can also handle 80% of routine tasks and customer questions. Currently 65% of marketers would be open to working with a metaverse influencer. Now brands can amplify assistance with AI-powered virtual brand ambassadors – custom designed based on a brand’s personality with human-like interactions providing product advice, how-to’s, FAQs and customer care anytime, anywhere 24/7.
How is Dentsu NXT Space different from other experiences available and what are some of the top features? Developing a space in the metaverse required the application of some unique technologies, brought together for the first time by our collective
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teams. Whether it is overcoming the skills-gap by making accessible and engaging training programs, or building multi-channel customer loyalty solutions using NFTs, the opportunities are truly endless. From co-creation in the metaverse to amplified assistance with
AI-powered virtual humans, Dentsu NXT Space is unleashing creativity with brands and businesses through the power of web3 technologies, the full suite of Microsoft 365 products, Microsoft AI-powered text to speech and forthcoming Microsoft Designer capabilities, alongside our proprietary ShopNXT technologies and NXT Intelligence innovation platform. We are able to work with the tools that we know and love as well as explore other technologies and experiences as they evolve. Dentsu NXT Space is built on Unreal Engine 5.1, an open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool and features full-body 3D avatars with Ready Player Me integration. The full experience is guided by ‘Neva’, an AI-powered virtual human
created in collaboration with
HeadOffice.space. Neva combines the power of Unreal Engine’s MetaHuman creator framework, Inworld’s AI dialogue and character creation tool, and Microsoft AI-powered text to speech, a capability within Azure Cognitive Services, part of the Azure AI platform, that converts text to lifelike speech across 400 neural voices across 140 languages and variants. For the first time, visitors can login with LinkedIn to grow their networks, connect with their communities and engage their audiences. With over eight billion people in the world, 6.8 billion smartphone users
and 5.16 billion internet users, it was important for us to provide more access to more people and not limit the experience to VR only – there’s no download, no app required so it works across web, mobile and VR.
What does the future hold? We will continue to see more focus on the employee experience, improved R&D, and ways that AI can amplify assistance across learning and development, retail, and team building with additional experiments and experiences to explore. At dentsu we’d say it’s “near but not here” and that is exactly why we
wanted to work with Microsoft, LinkedIn and
HeadOffice.Space show the world how today’s business problems can be solved in the metaverse tomorrow. Whether it is overcoming the skills-gap by making accessible and engaging training programs, or building multi-channel customer loyalty solutions using NFTs, or mapping innovation explorations through our NXT Intelligence platform, the opportunities are truly endless.
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