
Interesting Axios story illustrates just how much Silicon Valley has shifted its interest and investment into Generative AI startups like OpenAI and Midjourney, away from metaverse platforms and related technology:
According to PitchBook data compiled by Axios Media Deals' Tim Baysinger, through March 16, 2022, companies that played in the metaverse or web3 space had raised nearly $2 billion in funding.
So far this year, metaverse and web3 companies have raised $586.7 million, a bit more than a quarter of last year's total. The totals for generative AI companies are the inverse: Through March 16, 2022, the generative AI space saw $612.8 million in funding. This year, it's up to $2.3 billion.
Driving the news: In a note Tuesday announcing Meta would lay off 10,000 more employees, Zuckerberg spotlighted AI work and reduced the metaverse to an "also." “Our single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of our products,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Our leading work building the metaverse and shaping the next generation of computing platforms also remains central to defining the future of social connection.”
As I've explained before, conflating web3 with the Metaverse is a huge mistake, as is assuming Meta leads the metaverse industry. That aside, it's clearly the case that the Valley has shifted its buzz toward generative AI.
Is that smart? Obviously I'm biased when I say this, but there's already 520 million+ active users across many metaverse platforms, while the Metaverse's addressable market is at minimum everyone who regularly enjoys muti-user immersive experiences (i.e. 3D games online), roughly 1-2 billion people.
On the other side, there's several reasons to believe Generative AI is not as transformative as its most bullish boosters assume. For instance:
Tim Sweeney: Set Aside NFT & VR Hype, Metaverse Platforms Already Have 600 Million Users Now, "Billions" by This Decade
In case you missed it, Tim Sweeney laid out his vision for the Metaverse last week after his company Epic unleashed a number of metaverse platform-related announcements -- watch above at around 1 hour in:
Hard agree on the hype around NFTs and VR goggles (looking at you, Meta), while I'd quibble around the "billions" target -- 1 billion is more realistic. Fortnite, for example, has seen some slippage in its monthly active user numbers (though of course remains quite large).
Sweeney also got into his vision for the open metaverse:
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Posted on Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 01:41 PM in Comment of the Week, Making the Metaverse | Permalink | Comments (0)
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