Synthetic Minds | The Metaverse Didn't Die
Synthetic Minds | The Metaverse Didn't Die
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The Metaverse Didn’t Die. It Shed Its Skin.
While The Zuck fires 1000 people in its Reality Labs division, it is important to know that the metaverse isn't dead. It went underground to mature.
What we’re seeing now is not Zuckerberg’s cartoonish Horizon Worlds era, but the emergence of a serious spatial computing stack, quietly powered by AI, volumetric capture, and digital twins.
Meta’s retreat from VR studios and its $70+ billion burn was not the death of the metaverse; it was proof that crude avatars and closed worlds were never gonna work.
The real signal sits elsewhere. Volumetric video and VR content creation are scaling fast, driven by enterprise demand and spatial intelligence, not consumer hype.
Market data shows VR content creation growing at a 12.35% CAGR through 2035, moving decisively into training, simulation, healthcare, and industrial design. In parallel, volumetric video is becoming real-time, AI-powered, and cloud-integrated, exactly the spatial substrate required for believable presence.
Humans are neurologically wired for 3D. Screens were always a constraint. As AI-driven world models, digital twins, and spatial intelligence converge, the boundary between physical and digital erodes.
When perception can no longer reliably distinguish the two, the metaverse stops being a place and becomes infrastructure. At that moment, it won’t feel like technology. It will feel like reality behaving differently.
'Synthetic Minds' continues to reflect the synthetic forces reshaping our world. Quick, curated insights to feed your quest for a better understanding of our evolving synthetic future, powered by Futurwise:
1. NVIDIA is leveraging its expertise in AI, GPUs, and supercomputing to shape the future of quantum computing. The company is not building a quantum processing unit using its supercomputing capabilities. (Forbes)
2. In a rapidly evolving landscape, Chinese companies are pushing the boundaries of physical AI, with a focus on real-world applications and commercial value. (The Robot Report)
3. As AI-generated content becomes increasingly sophisticated, the question of authenticity has become more complex than ever. Multimodal detection can help us navigate the complexities of digital trust. (TechBullion)
4. The island nation of Bermuda is on the cusp of a revolution in finance, as it partners with Circle and Coinbase to adopt on-chain financial infrastructure, enabling fast, low-cost payments and reducing reliance on traditional intermediaries. (Crypto.news)
5. In a move that's both surprising and unsurprising, X has open sourced its algorithm, but what does this really mean for transparency and accountability or is it just transparency theater? (TechCrunch)
If you are interested in more insights, grab my latest, award-winning, book Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change and learn how to embrace a mindset that can deal with exponential change, or download my news 2026 tech trends report:
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Thank you.
Mark
Frequently asked questions
Is the metaverse dead after Meta's layoffs?
No, the metaverse is not dead. While Meta fired 1000 people in its Reality Labs division and burned over $70 billion, this represents proof that crude avatars and closed worlds were never going to work, not the death of the concept. The metaverse went underground to mature into a more serious spatial computing stack.
Link to this questionWhat is replacing Zuckerberg's Horizon Worlds vision?
A serious spatial computing stack is emerging, quietly powered by AI, volumetric capture, and digital twins. Unlike the cartoonish Horizon Worlds era, this new approach is driven by enterprise demand and spatial intelligence rather than consumer hype, focusing on volumetric video and VR content creation that scale for practical uses.
Link to this questionWhich industries are driving real metaverse growth?
VR content creation is moving decisively into training, simulation, healthcare, and industrial design, growing at a 12.35% CAGR through 2035. This growth is driven by enterprise demand and spatial intelligence rather than consumer entertainment, showing that the real momentum behind the metaverse lies in practical, professional applications.
Link to this questionWhy will the metaverse stop feeling like technology?
Humans are neurologically wired for 3D perception, and screens were always a constraint. As AI-driven world models, digital twins, and spatial intelligence converge, the boundary between physical and digital erodes. Once perception can no longer reliably distinguish between the two, the metaverse becomes infrastructure and feels like reality behaving differently rather than a distinct technology.
Link to this question
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam is The Digital Speaker, a world-leading futurist and global AI keynote speaker who helps leaders decide what AI, and the technologies that follow it, mean for their business. He speaks to leadership teams at their retreats and to conference audiences worldwide, and his WAVE framework gives them a way of deciding that they keep using long after he has left the room. His Intelligence Age Scorecard measures how ready an organization is across the four WAVE pillars.
He holds a PhD from the University of Technology Sydney, is a Certified Speaking Professional and Global Speaking Fellow, and ranks among the world’s top futurists on the Global Gurus list (#1 in 2025, #3 in 2026). Salesforce named him one of its 16 leading AI voices. He has written six books, most recently Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change, writes the Synthetic Minds newsletter on Substack, and founded Futurwise. Talk to his digital twin on WhatsApp: +1 (830) 463-6967.
