Daily Metaverse #94: IKEA is using AR and AI, and it's really impressive
If your brand is still shilling NFTs and saying you're in the metaverse, take a lesson.
Did you know IKEA did a collaboration with Swedish House Mafia? That’s totally unrelated to the metaverse but delightful nonetheless.
In more relevant IKEA news, they’re launching an app called IKEA Kreativ, which will enable you virtually explore show rooms and then use AR to design your own spaces. It’s a useful idea if not necessarily an original one - there are several retailers than already allow you to use AR to place items in your home.
IKEA’s taking it a step further, though - it uses AI to allow you to easily remove your existing furniture from your room, leaving you a blank canvas. I gave it a try, and it’s really impressive.
My office:
My office without furniture:
That took about three minutes to capture, and as you can see I did it under fairly poor conditions, with the camera pointed straight at an open window with plenty of light coming in. It still managed to identify every single item flawlessly. Color me impressed.
This functionality is presently available on the IKEA app for iOS - give it a try!
One can imagine how this will develop - pop on a VR headset, and you can walk around a digital replica of your home, easily adding and removing furniture. It would make for a perfect pairing with YUPIX’s VR real estate tours, which you may recall from an earlier newsletter:
I’d just like to close by giving a huge round of applause to IKEA. Instead of shilling NFT furniture, they’re using AR and AI to provide useful functionality that bridges the physical and digital worlds. That’s what the metaverse is really about.
The Metaverse in the Real World
IKEA Launches AI-Powered "Kreativ" Mixed Reality App: Great to see some brands starting to use the metaverse in ways that make sense, instead of fast food companies selling virtual burgers.
Interoperability in the Metaverse
Zuckerberg details his plan to move your digital items across the metaverse: But how much will this include non-Meta-owned parts of the metaverse? Only time will tell.
Events in the Metaverse
New York City pride parade will also be marching through the metaverse: There will be celebrations in Decentraland and The Sandbox.
How Balmain will bring its fall fashion show to the metaverse: They’re stepping up their game from just shilling NFTs to creating a sort of blockchain-based history of each physical item they sell (they call these non-fungible threads).
Business in the Metaverse
Mark Zuckerberg envisions a billion people in the metaverse spending hundreds of dollars each: Not really as crazy as it sounds, considering a lot of that will just be existing e-commerce moving into the metaverse.
Investing in the Metaverse
Italy: Banking Group Sella Introduces Metaverse Accelerator Program: 100,000 Euros for five companies.