The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what does it mean for business?

The fourth industrial revolution has ushered in a new era of digital transformation, one that is rapidly changing the way businesses operate. This new virtual landscape brings with it huge potential for businesses to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and create new revenue streams. 

This week, the World Economic Forum (WEF) met in Davos for its 53rd Annual Meeting. Among many topics on the agenda was the need for businesses to reassess their strategic decisions with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

Advances in technology help to make everyday lives easier, more convenient, and frankly, more interesting. The First Industrial Revolution was about steam power and mechanical production. It was followed by electrically powered mass production, and then came the digital revolution and automated production. We're now at the beginning of the next phase of technological expansion and social change: the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Marked by a mix of technologies that blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, according to the WEF, is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organisations create value, and even what it means to be human. 

Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Robotics, machine learning, big data, 3D printing, 5G, and XR are all part of this new age. The metaverse too. This futuristic version of the internet will be accessed through VR headsets, augmented reality, mobile phones, and computers or laptops. It’s very different to the current web (and even web3) and it’s still being figured out. But while the consumer version of the metaverse is many years away, the industrial metaverse is already happening and transforming how people design, manufacture, and communicate. 

The World Economic Forum released an article on this earlier this month citing digital twins as a key application of the industrial metaverse. Used for everything from city planning to manufacturing processes, digital twins were first proposed in 2002 and have now been adopted by a whole range of industries for different purposes. 

For instance, we worked with the World Expo in Dubai to enhance the experience by creating an incredibly accurate digital twin of the 4km² site. We populated it with over 200 buildings from the world’s leading architects and enabled remote visitors to access the same AR content and experiences as those attending the physical event. While companies like BMW, Amazon, and Vodafone have already integrated digital twins into their businesses to drive growth. 

Inside the digital twin of BMW’s assembly system, powered by Omniverse, an entire factory in simulation. Credit: Nvidia

Extended reality (XR), another of the industrial metaverse technologies, has been used by industries for years to improve processes and performance. Back in 2008, Jaguar began using a virtual reality system to cut the time and costs associated with vehicle design and development. The computer simulations allowed engineers to visualise full-size 3D models of components — plus the entire vehicle — before physical parts were available. This reduced the number of costly physical prototypes and models needed during the development of a car, as well as cutting the number of miles covered in prototypes.

Credit: Jaguar/Land Rover

Another huge use case for VR is training. Companies like Walmart, Boeing, and Intel have embraced the technology. Why? Because VR-based training programs can reduce training time by 40 per cent and improve employee performance by 70 per cent, compared to traditional training. It's one of the most common uses of XR within enterprises – 62 per cent according to CompTIA. 

Boeing software engineer Connie Miller tries out the Varjo virtual-reality system to control a computer-generated Starliner space taxi. Credit: Varjo / Boeing 

There’s significant media focus on the consumer metaverse, driven by investment in the sector. There’s also a lot of confusion because people aren’t quite sure what value the metaverse offers them. But Industries have already answered that question and are pushing ahead with innovations which are already yielding results. 

As businesses navigate this new landscape and grapple with the implications of an increasingly connected world, their advances — and setbacks — will help fuel the growth of the consumer metaverse.