3D avatars, immersive meetings—Microsoft enters metaverse race

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Editor's note: Last week, during the fall edition of Ignite 2021—Microsoft’s annual technology conference, which is now split into two virtual editions—the company demonstrated a pretty neat virtual reality experience. It started with the usual goofy video conference on Teams with several people attending as their digital avatars. These avatars were camera-powered and mimicked their lip and arm movements. But we’ve seen that before. Then it raised the bar. One of the showcases had an entire 3D office mapped out by Accenture and, using either the Oculus or HoloLens headsets, the staff and new hires at Accenture could meet as avatars, move around, interact with one another, access data and edit collaboratively. Microsoft has been helping Accenture build immersive spaces for a few years now. Before the pandemic, for instance, Accenture built a virtual campus where employees from anywhere could gather for coffee, presentations, parties and other events. However, a new use case emerged during the pandemic—onboarding new employees. Accenture hires more than 100,000 people a year and the onboarding process typically involves gathering new-hire cohorts and senior leadership in an office …