The success of Virtual Worlds for business services will be dependent upon the strength of interactions. The reality today, is that most services virtual buildings are empty except for events. This is not conducive for visitors who want to interact.
Why is this happening?
The cost of staffing just one avatar is expensive for a 24*365 service.
Each Avatar costs US$300,000+ per annum to be powered by people for a 24*365 service involving simple knowledge. But a service with just one staffed avatar would not work. So even a small team of avatars is going to cost over a US$1m a year in staffing costs!
These costs are significantly higher when complex knowledge is needed. In this case, each Avatar can cost in excess of US$1,000,000 per annum when powered by people that are subject matter experts. If a team of avatars are needed, each representing different areas of connected expertise then over US$10m could be needed without consideration the availability and retention of subject matter experts.
The economics and indeed logistics for complex knowledge are a high entry price for a 24*365 service.
The cost of powering an avatar through ai agents instead of people ranges from US$ 0 to US$3,000+. These ai agents can be accessed also from mobile and other digital touch points.
These are profound shifts in the cost of interaction economics.
Interactions are fundamental to Real World (refer to McKinsey paper ‘The Next Revolution in Interactions’ or the Economist paper ‘The Future of Marketing: from Monologue to Dialogue’) and the Virtual World.
The Virtual World has four primary types of interactions to power Avatars:
1. humans (the norm today) - natural language or scripted language
2. artificial intelligence broad and shallow - natural language
3. artificial intelligence broad and deep - scripted language (my specialization)
4. artificial intelligence narrow and deep - specialized ai application
Interactions are supported by powerful socioeconomic formulae and apply to the Virtual World in the same way as for the Real World.
Virtual Worlds inevitably will be an ecosystem of avatars powered by humans and artificial intelligence.
