It's Monday morning and you're in Hong Kong having coffee with your new boss, a virtual robot powered by artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, your digital clone is attending another meeting on your behalf, taking notes that you'll review later, but you're actually working from your bedroom in Rio de Janeiro. It may sound straight out of a science fiction novel, but this is the future of work promised by the metaverse and by NetDragon, a Chinese company that recently appointed an AI-powered virtual humanoid robot as the rotating CEO of its flagship subsidiary, Fujian NetDragon Websoft. The metaverse, often dubbed the next version of the Internet, promises a 3D virtual world that people enter via virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets to do business, hang out and play games through their virtual avatars or holograms. NetDragon Websoft, the Chinese gaming company which has gained a reputation with games such as Eudemons Online, Heroes Evolved, Conquer Online and Under Oath, is betting heavily on this new digital world and its related technologies.

The Metaverse sounds like an entirely futuristic concept, but it's something that innovators have been dreaming about for decades. A term literally meaning "beyond universe," the Metaverse asks us to reimagine a future where we'll have a brand-new world to explore – one enhanced by the XR world, and the online environment. The Metaverse is a trending concept as we look at the future of work for the post-pandemic era. Teams trying to overcome headaches like video fatigue and hybrid meetings are increasingly considering the possibilities of XR for future interactions. In this landscape, the Metaverse represents an opportunity for innovation unlike anything we've ever seen.