Metaverse: five things to know – and what it could mean for you

In the wake of Facebook rebranding as Meta, reflecting its focus on the "metaverse", Microsoft has now announced it, too, will launch into this space. Meta has proposed that the metaverse will eventually allow us to engage across education, work and social contexts, while Microsoft looks to be focusing specifically on the realm of the virtual office for now. But what actually is the metaverse and to what extent should we believe that the vision being presented to us is really going to be central to our daily lives? Science fiction author Neal Stephenson coined the term "metaverse" in his 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, presenting a 3D virtual world in which people, represented as avatars, could interact with each other and artificially intelligent agents. As with any big vision of a future that doesn't yet exist, many people have tried to stamp their own definitions on the metaverse.