Over the course of a few months last year, Trever Stewart painstakingly scanned his media company’s half-acre animation studio and replicated it in the metaverse. He is now starting to invite advertising agency clients into this virtual space for meetings so they can see how their animated content is made — from within.

“The metaverse is a grossly, grossly huge failure — but man did [companies such as Meta] build the tools so we can construct a new world right now!” says Stewart, associate producer of special projects at Bent Image Lab. “It’s bananas.”

“In a headset, say you take a mayonnaise jar in your hand, you are able to investigate the size and texture,” he explains. For advertisers, the ability to discuss complex visuals assisted by this level of 3D realism can help them to “have full control over the commercial they’re making”.