Transcription:
Penny Crosman: (
Welcome to the American Banker podcast. I'm Penny Crosman. Will we all work in the metaverse one day? What might that look like? And how can financial companies prepare for this? We're here today with Ian Khan, futurist and author of the forthcoming book "Metaverse for Dummies." Ian, thank you for coming.
Ian Khan: (
Well, thanks for having me, Penny. It's a pleasure.
Penny Crosman: (
So let's start off with a very basic question. Since you just finished this book called "Metaverse for Dummies," what is the metaverse?
Ian Khan: (
So a lot of different definitions of the metaverse are out there. And just for the sake of your audiences, the book is going to be out early next year. So the work on the book is happening right now. The metaverse is anything related to a virtual world that is evolving right now. Metaverse connects with gaming industry. It connects with the future of work. It connects with a lot of different things. But imagine you are in the early 1990s, and you hear this thing the internet is something out there with which you can access your bank account with, you can maybe play solitaire online with some people, and you can do many other things. You can browse a website and view a web page or something. And that is literally the era of the metaverse right now, it is at such an early beginning that it is going to be very confusing for the next few years, as we try to find a clarity and definition on what it means and how it does things. But really the metaverse is a collection of different virtual worlds or virtualized worlds, or augmented worlds that do not exist in physical form.
Ian Khan: (
They exist online on the servers of different companies and providers that have created these virtual worlds and where we can do things our avatar or our digital presence can accomplish some tasks. And a lot of that right now, that push is towards entertainment. It's towards gaming, it's towards meeting different people. And that's really where the metaverse is. It's this virtual world where we can be and exist and do things.
Penny Crosman: (
How do you think that sort of gaming and virtual reality, fun kind of atmosphere could become a somewhat more serious place where people really want to do work and maybe have work meetings and such. How do you think we get from where we are today, where it's mostly gaming, to that more professional situation?
Ian Khan: (
Great question. And to answer that we have to think about who is going to be working on the metaverse, right? So if we, again, track back 10, 15, 20 years ago, everyone who was starting to understand the internet and be part of the internet by creating something called an email ID or an account on a website, many of us, or many of those people had also lived in a world where there was no internet, right? There were those people that transitioned from that era. There were many others who were born in the era of the internet. So kids who were two, three, five years old, they're now in their twenties, maybe in their early thirties. They kind of were born in the era of the internet. The question that becomes, or the question I have is who do we think can easily use the internet right now, who is it second nature for, to use the internet?
Ian Khan: (
And a good answer is, the younger kids know the internet much better because they were born in the era of the internet. And so fast-forwarding now to answer your question, who are the people, first of all, who are going to be on the metaverse, I really believe it's going to be the younger generations of today, who will be the predominant workforce of tomorrow, who will be the workers of tomorrow, the scientists, the engineers, the doctors of the future. I think they will be a big part of being present on the metaverse and they will dictate how the metaverse will be used rather than us saying, Hey, now the future of work is going to be on the metaverse. Now you're going to perform your tasks on the metaverse. No, I think, and I really believe they will dictate what things can be done on the metaverse, which jobs can be done on the metaverse, what tasks can be completed on the metaverse. And we can talk a lot about different industries and what that would look like. But I think it's the younger generation that's going to determine and dictate the future of work on the metaverse.
Penny Crosman: (
That's a good point, because I know banks and fintechs are very strongly trying to compete in this war for talent and especially young tech talent. So being able to provide a really great experience in the metaverse as part of your job could become an allure for companies potentially. So you mentioned being able to do tasks in the metaverse, what might a task be in the metaverse and how would the metaverse make, say development or engineering better?
Ian Khan: (
I don't believe that the metaverse is a solution for everything. Just like blockchain technology that was touted to be the solution for everything. I don't think it's the solution for everything, or big data or what have you, in terms of technology in a similar way, I really don't believe the metaverse is going to be a place where everybody's going to go all the time, every day to do something, but there will be many people. And I'm unable to predict how many people will be part of the metaverse on a daily basis where they might spend…. I mean, right now the average time of us having screen time of adults in the United States, about 10 hours actually is spent on screen time, any kind of screen.
Ian Khan: (
And so in the future, there will be people who will have the metaverse screen time for many hours, five hours, 10 hours, irrespective of what they're doing there. Maybe they're gaming and gaming can be a profession as well. Maybe they're doing something creative as in the creative industry or they're part of one of the many different ecosystems that are rising up right now, for example, non fungible tokens or NFTs in the crypto world, the art, digital art world, many, many different things can happen. Now the question becomes what happens to traditional forms of professions, for example, a medical doctor, what can a medical doctor do on the metaverse right? Their job is to treat people and they should actually meet people, treat people or have that physical contact.
Ian Khan: (
Many things can be done remotely, many things can be done over the phone or on Zoom or on Microsoft Teams and so on. And so I think right now what is happening is our definition of these assumptions that we have to be, we have to do certain things in a certain way is being broken down because of the ways we found ourselves using technology in the last few years, last couple of years, especially in the future when the metaverse is something that's omnipresent, where it's not where the friction between a person and being on the metaverse is very minimalistic. I mean, imagine, you put on a pair of glasses and you are on the metaverse, you don't have to log in anywhere. You don't have to do any kind of a task to log in, but you purely are there that friction, when it reduces, it becomes minimal, more people will find it easier to go on the metaverse to do some of the things they want to do, whether it's customer service, whether it's working on a job, whether it's entertaining, entertainment. It really depends. So that idea of a technology kind of converging hardware, technology becoming better virtual glasses and virtual reality hardware becoming better, and more integrated in our lives. I think that's a key step for that adoption to take place. And that will take a few years, between three to seven to 10 years for it to be seamless. And as the younger generations grow up in the era of the metaverse, it'll be just second nature for them to do things on the metaverse.
Penny Crosman: (
So our audience is primarily financial services, and that's a fairly conservative sector. There are a lot of issues around security and privacy, especially for people who are developing code for any kind of financial application. Is all of that being built into the virtual reality environments that you're talking about, so that if a bank wanted to hire a bunch of young developers to work on a new, loan platform say they could do so, and there would be, it would be an appropriate, secure environment for them?
Ian Khan: (
As of right now, this second, no. None of that can be guaranteed or to say, in other words, that that work is not 100% entirely being done. Although different companies who are creating the metaverses are trying to create all kinds of safety and security into their systems, there's different sides of security, there's hardware, technology, security, cybersecurity, actual physical security. So there's many aspects to that security as well. Now, going back to the banking industry, the banking industry, yes, is very slow to adapt to fast change. And will they be open to having a bank on the metaverse? I think we have to think as a banking industry, think about who is the consumer of the future, who is it that you're trying to serve with the metaverse? Is it everybody, all your customers then that would be having the technology and trying to find an audience for it?
Ian Khan: (
I think the focus has to be very small in terms of who are the people who will use the metaverse. And to understand that let's think about who is already on the metaverse that you want to bank with, who do you want to target or attract towards your products and services that's already on the metaverse and what does their financial life look like? What kind of a job do they have? Do they have a traditional job or are they working on the metaverse? Are they doing a nine to five on the metaverse? Are they in the retail industry on the metaverse? Are they a healthcare provider on the metaverse? And these questions have to be asked in order to identify that character, or persona of your audience in order to justify or say, well, as a bank or as a financial institution, we feel that we should be on the metaverse to do so, so on and so forth to bank with people who are on the metaverse. So I think banks have to really think about this and yes, the security will come. The privacy rules can be built in, but I think first of all, banks need to identify who they want to serve and why. And then these systems, these frameworks, these maybe in the future, you will have ultra secure metaverses created by banks. Your bank, or anyone listening right now can have their own metaverse, where secure banking can happen and it can have the best security in the world. So all that is possible. But we first need to understand who are you banking with? Is it the five year old right now who is going to be 10 or 15 after a few years, is that your target customer? So let's imagine then what their life will be and what their needs will be.
Penny Crosman: (
So, currently there are a few banks kind of experimenting a little bit. JPMorgan Chase has a lounge in Decentraland where people can just come in and look at a little bit of information about the bank's blockchain projects. And there's a tiger that paces back and forth. And HSBC is setting up an esports, gaming site within The Sandbox and there are a couple of others just sort of dabbling. Do you think that that makes sense, those kinds of testing the waters, pilot programs?
Ian Khan: (
I I'm really a fan, a big fan of, of thinking outside the box and, and experimenting. I think banks are generally very traditional, but there's also that new insight in banks that new energy in banks where, where they want to do non-traditional things and within the banking industry as well, there are different types of organizations. I generally don't want to categorize the entire banking industry being off one typical category, but there are innovative banks who, you mentioned a couple, who want to go out there and experiment a little who want to go out and start making their name known to audiences who are in the metaverse or maybe, leverage public relations PR and anything, or change the perception of their brand, in front of their customers. There are many reasons why a bank may choose to be on the metaverse right now.
Ian Khan: (
And it's not just banking, as such at this moment in time. You mentioned JPMorganChase and a tiger walking by. The tiger's got nothing to do with banking, but it definitely is very interesting and attractive and gets people intrigued on why is that happening and how is that happening? And they want to probably check out their branch on the meadow. So I think innovation and thinking out of the box is really necessary for anyone, any industry, banking included, to be able to tap into a new market. And if you don't do that, you are lagging, you're behind everybody else who's in the metaverse. So I definitely support taking these calculated risks, which are not risks. I think they're strategic in establishing your brand and to create a different perception for your brand and who knows, right? How many people will you be able to bank on the metaverse in the next five years as more and more people are part of the metaverse they're living more of their life on the metaverse. And the next thing they want to do is they want to withdraw some funds from their account. And, they want to stay on the metaverse to do that, or they wanna do some banking. So there's lots of possibilities.
Penny Crosman: (
Hmm. So just to switch back to the idea of working in the metaverse and having your employees in the metaverse, what do you think about meetings in the metaverse? I remember Mark Zuckerberg showed his sort of vision when he relaunched Facebook as meta, and he showed these virtual meetings where everybody has an avatar in this meeting. And I gotta tell you personally, it wasn't like super appealing, but, it's early days. So I don't, I don't mean to be, casting aspersions, but what do you think of that? Do you think that the metaverse could make meetings better in some way?
Ian Khan: (
I think during the last couple of years, when a huge amount of people across the world went from physically working to going digital, to using one of the online collaboration platforms, whether it's Teams, Zoom, Google, or what have you, we realized that we could do things in a different way? Whether you're using just your voice as we are on this podcast, or you want to use video between two people or more people. And they've also realized that there are some challenges to that. There are some restrictions to that, where you can't have that engagement, as you have in physical, personal, one-on-one basis. And so the matter works with your avatars, first of all, you, even before I say, what's going to happen to it, which I think we're in early days of where graphics are with respect to avatars in the matter works.
Ian Khan: (
Some people may find their cartoon looking avatars really silly, and they might say, Hey, I really don't want to look like that right now. And I feel this is more generational. This is more generational, younger kids have no problem dressing up their avatars and looking like a dragon and doing things on the internet. Whereas I might be more conservative and I might say, ah, well, if I have an avatar, I need to have a tie and I want to look nice and look presentable. So I think it's, again, it's generational and we are on early days on how avatars look in terms of re in terms of the whole, look and feel. I feel there's going to be a, a huge change and increase in the graphics capacities on the metaverse and avatars will look more realistic, whether they're artificial looking or an actual image of you, they will look more realistic, which adds a little bit of a human element if you want to have that human element.
Ian Khan: (
But I also feel that having a presence online again, is the way we communicate for younger people, for generations and people and workers who want to be on the, on the metaverse. And they're on the metaverse, maybe having an avatar is just a default state. They just want do that. And they might be much more comfortable doing that. So it really depends on the digital culture of an organization. and when you talk about a bank, what is the kind of the brand strategy or the strategy of the bank to create these avatars? What kind of avatars will they display? Will they be ethnically diverse? Will they be multilingual? What kind of clothes will they wear? Will they have formal attires, or if it's a lounge environment for a bank, will they have casual wear? Will they, if it's a branch of a bank or metaverse presence off a bank on the metaverse on a beach, like a virtual beach on the metaverse will bank employees be in beach wear? I don't know. It's, it's all, it all depends on what strategy is being used and why. And for that, we go back again to the first step. First thing that I talk about is who are you trying to attract? And that will determine a lot of different things.
Penny Crosman: (
Sure. That makes a lot of sense. Well, Ian Khan, thanks so much for joining us today. And to all of you in the audience, thank you for listening to the American baker podcast. I produced this episode with audio production by Kellie Malone. Special thanks this week to Ian Khan, author of the forthcoming book, “Metaverse for Dummies.” Rate us, review us and subscribe to our content www.americanbanker.com/subscribe. For American Banker, I'm Penny Crosman and thanks for listening.