10. Digital humans get more realistic.

Digital humans may have earned a spot on our list of trends last year, but we haven’t grown tired of traversing the uncanny valley to play with the technology. In fact, the recent explosion of conversational AI will likely inject new life into digital humans and transform the realms of customer service, entertainment and more. Whether used to hand-craft original characters or refine scanned-in digital twins, digital human creation tools are becoming increasingly complex to deliver lifelike avatars. 

“We’ll see more competition between Unreal’s MetaHuman Creator and Unity’s Ziva,” says Geert Eichhorn, Innovation Director. In fact, Media.Monks has used Unreal’s tool to create a digital double of our APAC Chief Executive Officer, Michel de Rijk. Because why not?

9. Motion capture becomes more accessible.

Last year, we released a Labs Report dedicated to motion capture and how its increasing accessibility influenced content production for both professional film teams and everyday consumers. New technologies available at consumer price points are helping to bring motion capture into even more people’s hands. Meta’s Quest Pro headset, which released late last year, features impressive facial tracking that will be key to expressing the nuances of human emotion in VR. Move.ai, currently in beta, enables 1:1 motion tracking with a group of mobile devices—no bodysuits, no markers, no extra hardware needed. Using computer vision, the platform allows anyone to make motion capture video in any environment.

8. Mixed reality and mirror worlds mature.

With smaller and more comfortable AR headsets shown off already at CES, we can expect augmented and mixed reality to become more immersive, accessible and practical over the course of 2023 (check out more of what we saw at CES here). The VIVE Flow, for example, includes diopters so that users can replicate their prescription lenses in the device, amounting to a more comfortable experience overall. 

But it’s not just about hardware. “One of the major advancements is not in the headsets, but in the software,” says Eichhorn, noting that VPS has the power to pinpoint a user’s exact position and vantage point in the real world. “They do this positioning by comparing your camera view to a virtual, 3D version of the world, like Street View.” We covered mirror worlds in last year’s trend list, but the development of VPS is now bringing this vision closer to everyday consumers.

While VPS currently works only outdoors, we’ve already seen the power of the technology with Gorillaz performances in Times Square and Piccadilly Circus in December 2022.

7. More enterprises embrace the hybrid model.

For many businesses the return to the office hasn’t been a smooth transition; while some roles require close collaboration within a shared space, others enjoy more flexible setups that support childcare, offer privacy for focus work or greater accessibility. Given the benefits of flexible work setups and the development of technologies that build presence in virtual environments, Luis Guajardo Díaz, Creative Technologist, believes more enterprises will embrace the hybrid work model.

Media.Monks’ live broadcast team, for example, built a sophisticated network of cloud-based virtual machines hosted on AWS to enable people distributed around the world to produce live broadcasts and events. Born out of necessity during the pandemic, the workflow goes beyond bringing teams together—it’s designed to overcome some of the challenges traditional broadcast teams face on the ground, like outages or hardware malfunctions. It stands to show how hybrid models can help enhance the ways we work today.

6. Virtual production continues to impress.

Virtual production powered by real-time become popular in recent years: the beautiful environments of The Mandalorian or grungy urban landscape of The Matrix showed what was possible by integrating game engines in the production process, while pandemic lockdowns made the technology a necessity for teams who couldn’t shoot on location.

Now, further advancements in game engines and graphics processing offer a look inside the future of virtual production. Sander van der Vegte, VP Emerging Tech and R&D, points to Unreal’s Nanite, which allows for the optimization of raw 3D content in real time.

Localization of content is one example. “In 2023 we’re going to see this versatility in the localization of shoots, where one virtual production shoot can have different settings for different regions, all adapted post-shoot,” says Eichhorn.

5. TV streaming and broadcasts become more interactive.

With virtual production becoming even more powerful, TV and broadcasting will also evolve to become more interactive and immersive. “Translating live, filmed people into real-time models allows for many new creative possibilities,” says van der Vegt. “Imagine unlocking the power to be the cameraman for anything you are watching on TV.” 

It might sound like science fiction, but Sander’s vision isn’t far off. At this year’s CES, Sony demoed a platform that uses Hawk-Eye data to generate simulated sports replays. Users can freely control the virtual camera to view the action from any angle—and while not live, the demo illustrates the power of more immersive broadcasts. The technology could be a game changer for sports and televised events that let audiences feel like they’re part of the action.

4. Metaverse moves become more strategic.

“2021 was a peak hype year for the metaverse and Web3. 2022 was the year of major disillusionment,” says Javier Sancho, Project Manager. “There are plenty of reasons to believe that this was just an overinflated hype, but it’s a recurring pattern in tech history.” Indeed, a “trough of disillusionment” inevitably follows a peak in the hype cycle.

This year will challenge brands to think of where they fit within the metaverse—and how they can leverage the immersive technology to drive bottom-line value. Angelica Ortiz, Senior Creative Technologist, says the key to unlocking value in metaverse spaces is to think beyond one-time activations and instead fuel long-term customer journeys.

A great example of how brands are using Web3 in impactful ways is by transforming customer loyalty programs, like offering unique membership perks and gamified experiences. These programs reinforce how the Web3 ethos is evolving brand-customer relationships by turning consumers into active participants and collaborators.

3. Large language models keep the conversation flowing.

With so much interest in bots like ChatGPT, the Labs.Monks expect large language models (LLMs) will continue to impress as the year goes on. “Large Language Models (LLMs) are artificial intelligence tools that can read, summarize and translate texts, and generate sentences similar to how humans talk and write,” says Eichhorn. These models can hold humanlike conversations, answering complex questions and even writing programs. But these skills open a can of worms, especially in education when students can outsource their homework to a bot.

LLMs like GPT are only going to become more powerful, with GPT-4 soon to launch. But despite their impressive ability to understand and mimic human speech, inaccuracies in response still need to be worked out. “The results are not entirely trustworthy, so there’s plenty of challenges ahead,” says Eichhorn. “We expect many discussions over AI sentience this year, as the Turing Test is a measurement we’re going to leave behind.” In fact, Google’s LaMDA already triggered debates about sentience last year—so expect more to come. 

2. Generative AI paints the future of AI-assisted creativity.

If 2021 was the year of the metaverse, the breakout star of 2022 is generative AI in all its forms: creating copy, music, voiceovers and especially artwork. “Generative AI wasn’t on our list in 2022, although looking back it should have been,” says Eichhorn. “The writing was on the wall, and internally we’ve been working on machine learning and generating assets for years.” 

But while the technology has been embraced by some creatives and technologists, there’s also been some worry and pushback. “These new technologies are so disruptive that we see not only copywriters and illustrators feel threatened, but also major tech companies need to catch up to not become obsolete.” 

In response to these concerns, Ortiz anticipates a friendly middle ground where AI will be used to augment—not erase—human creativity. “With the increasing push back from artists, the industry will find strategic ways to optimize processes not cut jobs to improve workflows and let artists do more of what they love and less of what they don’t,” she says. Prior to the generative AI boom, Adobe integrated machine learning and artificial intelligence across its software with Adobe Sensei. More recently, they announced plans to sell AI-generated images on their stock photography platform.

1. The definition of “artist” or “creator” changes forever.

Perhaps the most significant trend we anticipate this year isn’t a tech trend; rather, it’s the effect that technology like generative AI and LLMs will have on artists, knowledge workers and society. 

With an abundance of AI-generated content, traditional works of art—illustrations, photographs and more—may lose some of their value. “But on the flip side, these tools let everyone become an artist, including those who were never able to create this kind of work before,” says Eichhorn. This can mean those who lack the training, sure, but it also means those with disabilities who have found particular creative fields to be inaccessible.

When everyone can be an artist, what does being an artist even mean? The new definition will lie in the skills that generative AI forces us to adopt. Working with generative AI doesn’t necessarily eliminate creative decision-making; rather, it changes what the creative process entails. New creative skills, like understanding how to prompt a generative AI for specific results, may reshape the role of the artist into something more akin to a director. 

Eichhorn compares these questions to the rise of digital cameras and Photoshop, both of which changed photography forever while making it more accessible. “The whole process will take many more years to settle in society, but we’ll likely see many discussions this year on what ‘craft’ really entails,” says Eichhorn.

That’s all, but we can expect a few surprises to emerge as the year goes on. Look out for more updates from the Labs.Monks, who regularly release reports, prototypes and podcast episodes that touch on the latest in digital tech, including some of the topics discussed above. Here’s to another year of innovation!

The time has passed for flashy, disconnected activations or the cash grabs that once earned fleeting attention. How can brands relate to the tastemakers, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors of tomorrow? Now is the time for brands to build their understanding of what motivates people in this space, and how their continued activities will reshape the brand-customer relationship for the better.

Learn more about our end-to-end Salesforce capabilities, from discovery to strategy to activation and optimization, here.

Virtualization defines the transformation of digital.

As the world opened back up, an era of digital transformation gave way to the transformation of digital. By this, we mean virtualization: a set of new audience behaviors, cultural norms and technology paradigms resulting from 30 years of digital transformation, hyper-accelerated over the past five years. Virtualization, covered in our report earlier this year, marks a revolution in consumer behavior as people demand more from the digital platforms they engage with, which implicates the ways they look at digital experience, community, ownership and identity. For example, the design of ComplexLand, a virtualization of the hype-fueled annual event ComplexCon, was built around the insight that today’s fashion trendsetters are becoming just as invested in their digital identities as their corporeal ones.

The Social Innovation Lab, who explores up-and-coming trends in social, delved deeper into what motivates some of these behavioral changes in The Search for Meaning. By exploring how technology shapes the ways consumers find and make meaning in their lives, the Social Innovation Lab uncovers how brands can adapt to the new era in digital.

Experiments in the metaverse drive real success.

One of the biggest manifestations of the virtualization trend has been the rise of the metaverse, which many brands have experimented with this year to find their footing. Duolingo celebrated the birthday of its lovable (and persistent) mascot by hosting a game jam in Roblox and building larger-than-life public artwork in Decentraland. Logitech for Creators reinvented the awards show format by building the first music awards show in the metaverse, the Song Breaker Awards.

The fashion industry in particular has found a lot of success in the space. Liam Osbourne, Global Client Partner at the FLUX.Monks, our dedicated fashion and luxury team, shared with Vogue some insight on how the metaverse is an opportunity to become more inclusive. For brands exploring that question and more, the FLUX.Monks have authored a quick bulletin on why the metaverse matters.

As the metaverse continues to take shape, now is an excellent time for brands to continue experimenting in the space, which was a large part of a discussion shared between SVP Web3, Metaverse & Innovation Strategy Catherine D. Henry; Chief Innovation Officer Henry Cowling; and Mike Proulx, VP and Research Director at Forrester as part of our Meet Me in the Metaverse series. Eager to get started experimenting in the metaverse yourself? Our map of the metaverse can help you find the right home for your brand within this quickly evolving space.

Web3 and other emerging tech begin to mature.

In addition to the metaverse, other emerging technologies have fueled transformative digital experiences—most notably Web3. We showed up at NFT.NYC, the biggest Web3 conference on this side of the screen, with an immersive installation for Cool Cats that blurred the boundary between virtual and the real. Meanwhile, Gucci opened the virtual door to an immersive gallery space used to host an auction of NFT artwork.   

More than just a new tech infrastructure, Web3 marks a foundational shift in brand-consumer relationships, a topic covered in a bulletin we released in collaboration with Salesforce this year titled Web 3: The Future of Customer Engagement. For those wondering how to begin making moves in Web3, check out insights from our In a Monk’s Opinion series, which lays out everything you need to know about NFTs and the blockchain. One tip from the Labs.Monks: be sure to make your NFT projects sustainable.

Speaking of the Labs.Monks, our R&D team has continually released missives on the bleeding edge of tech throughout a year of innovation. Their most recent report on generative AI explores the potential of AI tools like Dall-E and Mid Journey that have captured creatives’ imagination (and people’s social feeds). One example of what the tech can achieve: unlocking efficiencies in animation and other production needs.

Creativity and media go hand in hand.

Throughout the digital era, it’s been tempting to focus attention on vanity metrics. But as CMOs invest more dollars into media (and face increasing budget scrutiny with a possible recession), they will benefit from transforming their approach to a more holistic strategy that blends media and creative to optimize their spend. Speaking to Digiday, Media.Monks Global Head of Media Melissa Wisehart unveiled how our integrated media pillar is designed to help brands make this leap.

Uni's relaunch campaign demonstrates this more holistic approach through the development of both the creative and media placement by one partner. With three creative variations and four measurement initiatives, we ensured the creative rolled out across today’s most relevant channels according to their purpose within the brand ecosystem.

When it comes to creative optimization, wellness brand Hatch found great success—and shared some of their secrets in an episode of In a Monk’s Opinion featuring Hatch’s VP Growth Marketing Holly Elliott. Many brands that rely on digital platforms for their marketing face a series of challenges: rising acquisition costs; a limited ability to manage their performance, attribution and audience targeting; and the risk of losing brand authenticity. Hatch assuaged these concerns by striking a balance between creative and performance. In the episode, Holly and our creative performance experts offer insight into how historical performance data can fuel further creative iterations.

Brands prepare for the oncoming privacy era.

While media optimization and performance may be top of mind now, budget conscious CMOs are also eyeing another obstacle on the horizon: overcoming their reliance on third-party cookies as attitudes in privacy shift and as Google aims to sunset third-party cookies with the Chrome browser. And speaking of cookies, VP of Data Services and Technology Doug Hall recently shared ways marketers can rethink cookie consent and management using the Privacy Sandbox platform.

Add to the mix that Google is sunsetting GA360 to make way for its new GA4 platform, meaning brands have plenty of adjustments to manage in the near future. Thankfully, GA360’s sunset was postponed to July 2024, meaning they have more time to perfect their migration strategy. Our data experts put their heads together to create a short guide on how to maximize your move to GA4 before the deadline.

We’ve also got some inspiration based on how other brands have future-proofed their data strategies with great success. We began our partnership with Molson Coors in 2021 with the goal to bring more of its digital media in-house. By taking an ambitious, holistic approach focused on modernization, we’ve since helped the brand future-proof with a robust, in-house digital media team: a data transformation that ranges from data acquisition, data activation and enrichment, and optimization.

And in the commerce space, leadership from Canadian retailer Reitmans shared the role cloud computing played in building a single source of truth throughout its entire organization, joining online consumer behavior with data from over 400 brick-and-mortar locations. Check out the episode of IMO to learn how a strong data foundation helped the brand adapt at speed.

Speaking of data foundations, emerging technologies like Web3 offer new ways of connecting with consumers and strengthening relationships. In an episode of Meet Me in the Metaverse, Ashley Muscumeci, our Director, Go-to-Market, sat down with Jordan Cuddy, Chief Client Officer at Jam3, and Avanthika Ramesh, Senior Product Manager, NFT Cloud at Salesforce, to explore how building a resilient data foundation will help brands get a head-start into the Web3 future. One key insight: despite being a new space, the same rules apply when it comes to user consent. “Even if you are bridging Web3 and Web2 data to bring all these identifiers about a consumer together, it’s really important that the user opts in and provides consent to merge these identities,” says Ramesh.

Commerce goes social and creators go virtual.

In recent years, creators have expanded their digital footprint into new spaces—like gaming and social audio—and have even adopted new content ventures to translate audience engagement into revenue for brands. So, what does the intersection of content, commerce and entertainment look like today? The Social Innovation Lab launched a report earlier this year, The Year of Digital Creators, to explore the state of the creator economy in depth, available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

One example of how creators have transformed the consumer journey is through the rise of live commerce, the subject of a recently released Social Bite from the Social Innovation Lab. Live commerce blends communities and real-time connection to offer entertaining, interactive and personalized experiences for audiences, and the short deck offers a glimpse into the live commerce journey and how brands can activate audiences every step of the way.

What’s next in the realm of digital creators? Expect more and more virtual influencers in the form of CGI-rendered fictional characters or avatar alter-egos of real people. With the rise of the metaverse and more accessible motion capture technology, virtual influencers are primed to become a more common presence in brands’ influencer marketing strategies—and if you’re curious about the role one could play in your own marketing, check out another Social Bite about how virtual influencers are coming alive.

Here's to a new year of innovating!

With so much innovation in the last year spanning experiences, content creation and optimization through data, there’s a lot to celebrate as we cap off 2022. Looking ahead into the new year, these trends will continue to shape brands’ strategies as they seek to engage with hyper connected audiences in the new digital era.

Where will you begin? Reach out to start your 2023 journey with confidence.

During the pandemic doldrums, we all saw how difficult it can be to translate the magic of in-person events from the stage to the screen—but increasingly immersive platforms solve these challenges by enabling a sense of presence within. While not a replacement for the experiences that inspire them, these activations can level up their ambition and become strategic, long-term additions to a brand’s digital strategy. Here’s how two brands were able to transform iconic IRL experiences into significant, long-term elements of their digital experience strategy.

Start with community.

 Metaverse spaces serve as environments where people can connect with one another in real time, much like events in the real world. In fact, communal experiences are a hallmark of successful metaverse-related activations and Web3 projects, making community building a key design consideration. This was the case for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which we marched into the realm of Web3 with a virtual recreation of New York’s Fifth Avenue—the IRL route for the parade—and a series of galleries featuring NFTs inspired by the parade’s iconic balloons and other popular projects like Cool Cats, VeeFriends and more.

Throughout its history, the parade has brought more and more people together through mass media channels: originally broadcast locally in New York in 1939, today more than 44 million people watch the parade each year. By building an immersive space where people can interact and engage with one another, even more attendees could enjoy the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in a totally new way no matter where they are: the event brought in over 90,000 users.

And for some virtual attendees, that’s just the start of the journey. With the ability to buy NFTs from some of the most popular projects, each with their own communities built around them, those who make a purchase are initiated into new entrepreneurial or artistic social circles.

Add value and cohesion through interoperability.

Culture doesn’t happen in a silo, so neither should a brand activation. One of the key promises of metaverse and Web3 technology is interoperability, or the ability of two or more systems to exchange and use information. Interoperability can mean enabling compatibility between different platforms or—perhaps more compelling for virtualizing IRL experiences—seamlessly bringing together both the real and virtual worlds.

For that latter point, look at ComplexLand, a 3D digital platform inspired by ComplexCon—the cultural mecca bringing together the Complex Networks community, the hottest cultural trends and hype-fueled brands. Reimagined in a virtual format, ComplexLand provided a seamless shopping experience so attendees could fill both their physical wardrobes along with their virtual ones. Attendees could even unlock food deliveries by interacting with virtual food trucks parked throughout the world, bringing a little piece of the IRL festival experience to audiences from afar.

When it comes to interoperability in the more technical sense, the virtual Thanksgiving Day Parade was designed for attendees to take a little something with them across the metaverse. After purchasing an NFT, visitors could carry them into other worlds thanks to blockchain technology. They also had the chance to vote for which NFT project on display deserved to become a balloon in next year’s IRL show, further bridging together the real and virtual world (Cool Cats ultimately won).

Build towards the future.

As metaverse spaces mature and the hype cycle winds down, brands are beginning to look beyond one-and-done activations for ways to build meaningful interactions that fuel long-term value. From setting the foundation for new revenue streams to iterating toward increasingly sophisticated metaverse experiences, reimagining an event can become a springboard for innovation.

You can trace this concept in action through the evolution of ComplexLand, with each annual edition building on those of previous years. Originally launched in 2019, the first ComplexLand was a single-player experience, though the following year added more opportunities for attendees to engage with others: sharing drops, having one-to-one conversations and interacting with branded non-player characters. This year’s version added Web3 capabilities—like minting NFTs—to enable new forms of connection and creative expression. The journey has led ComplexLand to become Complex Networks’ second-largest source of revenue and a key part of its events strategy.

The virtual Thanksgiving Day Parade similarly builds on Macy’s earlier Web3 efforts. Last year, the retailer celebrated the 95th anniversary of the parade by launching a series of 9,500 NFTs based on classic balloons. The addition of the immersive parade route and NFT galleries not only brings the magic of the holiday season to people everywhere; and introduces new audiences to both virtual spaces and NFTs.

Build in authenticity by seizing the spirit of the event.

Finally, consider the overall purpose of your event or activation. Reinforcing a sense of purpose helps build authenticity into the overall experience. Macys captured the spirit of Thanksgiving with their virtual parade by donating all proceeds from NFT purchases to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting mentoring relationships for youth.

From the abstract world of ComplexLand to a virtual Fifth Avenue, both Complex Networks and Macy’s were able to expand the reach and relevance of their iconic IRL events. At the very least, these reimagined experiences offered moments of surprise to those familiar with their original in-person iterations. But more significantly, they serve as iterative steps that symbolize both brands’ willingness to continue building maturity in Web3 and the metaverse. By folding their core values into features that are inherently unique to the space, both brands authentically set the stage to meet digital-native audiences where they’re at.

In this episode of Meet Me in the Metaverse, host Ashley Musumeci, Director, Go-To-Market at Media.Monks, sits down with Jordan Cuddy, Chief Client Officer at Jam3, and Avanthika Ramesh, Senior Product Manager, NFT Cloud at Salesforce, to explore how building a resilient data foundation will help brands get a head-start into the Web3 future. Watch and listen below.

In this episode

2:13: Customer engagement changes in Web3

5:48: Ensuring long term value and utility of your Web3 activations

11:24: Choosing the right platforms

16:27: How to build people’s trust in brands

21:33: Activating responsibly

24:23: Change management needs

Solving the Web3 identity crisis.

Web3 offers new customer touchpoints, and with them come new kinds of personal data like anonymized wallets or communication in new channels. But elements of privacy and consent that were required in Web2 engagements still carry over into Web3, says Ramesh, introducing an identity crisis for brands to solve. “Even if you are bridging Web3 and Web2 data to bring all these identifiers about a consumer together, it’s really important that the user opts in and provides consent to merge these identities,” she says. This challenge has led to the release of new, Web3-connected CRMs from businesses like Salesforce who aim to solve the need for a full, 360-degree view of the customer.

For brands who want to engage meaningfully with consumers in the space, Cuddy encourages starting with a purpose. Jam3 helped Adidas take its first, sneaker-worn step into the metaverse to build hype for its new collection of Ozweego shoes. “What our strategy team found was that there was a shift from ‘Where can I go in the metaverse’ to ‘Who can I be in the metaverse.’” The team realized that options for self-expression in the metaverse were often limiting. Ozworld Alter Ego, a generative platform that creates a unique avatar based on personality and style, made perfect sense for a brand focused on self-expression through fashion.

As brands seek a unified approach to their data-driven marketing, a strong Web3 strategy makes for a valuable addition to their existing data foundations. From experimenting with new channels to developing your own platform like Complex did, there are many ways to test and learn your way to Web3 success. And by delivering experiences that people value, you’ll incentivize customers to share data that will help strengthen customer relationships.

Eager to learn how to build solid data foundations in Web3 and beyond? Catch the full episode of Meet Me in the Metaverse above.