We are living in an amazing time, where we witness the widespread adoption of AI, to be followed with everyday virtual & extended reality and metaverse. Thinking back in time – when I was young during 80s and 90s – this is something that was sci-fi and fantasy. 2020 was really far away in the future those days, and now that is already history.  Look where we are now with the collaboration, entertainment, technology, and the world. These 30-40 years have changed the world and what is possible. It is a funny thought, that during 80s and 90s anything that happened during 60s seemed like old history – at least for a young kid who I was back then. 20 years ago, 2003, we had, already back then. a massive adoption of mobile phones, the internet was widely used, and technology seemed quite amazing on that year. First virtual worlds were even there. Artificial intelligence was still sci-fi for majority of people. Today, looking back on 2003, it feels like it was just the first careful steps. With AI advancements we can see it will drive us towards the future faster than before. 2040 may seem like a far far away, but it is just 17 years ahead. I will very likely look at that year back in history and feel we were climbing first steps towards the future.

What is Microsoft Mesh?

Microsoft Mesh is a platform that powers shared immersive experiences. It offers remote and hybrid workers a more natural way to connect with a sense of co-presence. Mesh also enables creators to build custom employee experiences that bring people together for new hire onboarding, training, team building, and more. Microsoft is bringing Mesh capabilities into Microsoft Teams with avatars and immersive experiences so employees can easily connect where work happens.

Microsoft Mesh has been bubbling under for some time. We got Mesh Avatars this year, and it will take some time for people to adopt worklife and learn use cases where it shines. Avatars are getting more usage once we can join Immersive Teams meetings (virtual meeting spaces) and Mesh custom worlds. We saw what is coming during the Microsoft Build 2023 in May. It alone was sharing a lot of information I went through in my Build 2023 blog post about Mesh.

Since Build, Microsoft Mesh’ product group people have also been visiting other events. Upcoming Metaverse One 2023, on September 20^th, included. PG. The question isn’t, is there going to Mesh but when we get it!

Currently Mesh is in the private preview.

Mesh is coming – get ready!

We know, Mesh is coming to both Teams (as Immersive meetings) and to custom worlds, it is a good time to start thinking about how to prepare your organization for Mesh!

Not every Microsoft license includes Teams Avatars. Avatars are included in Teams Essentials, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 E3/E5, and Office 365 E1/E3/E5.

For Avatars best experience using the avatars for Teams app, Microsoft recommends a computer that has a four core CPU with at least 8GB of RAM. There is also a need for IT Admins to ensure that access to required domains and ports is allowed in firewall and proxy.

Since we don’t have technical requirement details beyond Mesh Avatars, it is actually a good moment to think about the culture and collaboration and how it will be enhanced with new capabilities.

First, start onboarding and adopting Mesh Avatars to use. This won’t be that easy in some organizations as Avatars are seen as silly or “play”. The culture is maybe hindering usage and avatar reactions are reserved only for out-of-work gatherings. For this the old bucket of change management and adoption is required: people need to see where it gives benefits and value to them. And they need examples from colleagues and management. HR and internal communications need to be involved so people are aware of avatars and that “it is ok to use avatars”. Experiment with people and create examples and use cases where they work in your context. I am not a fan of avatar usage rules (I believe in professional people’s personal judgement) but in some cultures it makes it easier for people to know when to use and when not to use them. My rule of thumb is that it is better to have an avatar on, rather than have camera off.

Personally, there are plenty of use cases where avatars make sense: people are working early morning or late night, “bad hair day”, having something to eat at the same time, knowing that they are distracted and may need to move around, on the road. Avatars may be the way for some people to express themselves better, or some people want to hide details (say : accident has happened). For some it is easer to speak when they are not camera on (surprise: I am one of those in larger groups – despite all the public speaking I do! ). Avatars are also one piece in the inclusivity and diversity culture.

Adopting avatars is important, since it familiarizes people to everyone’s digital twin and you get used seeing them. Otherwise, it can be quite a drop for some when they realize they need to join a virtual world (meeting or custom). Already understanding how Avatars work and what (and who ) they are does help.

IT Admins can manage Avatars in various way, for details check out Microsoft Learn Set up avatars for Microsoft Teams.

Immersive meetings are going to be part of Microsoft Teams. You will be able to switch to immersive meeting from Team’s view selection. Since it will be easy, it will be used. This is where it will become “interesting”: some people can be in the meeting using Teams traditionally (2D as we do today) and some in the immersive mode. If you don’t understand what it is and why something is happening, then it can be confusing – and take the focus off the meeting in the worst case. 3D can bring benefits to meetings where we want to be able to have the freedom to form small groups easily (easier than in Teams Breakout Rooms) and when we go to the relaxed environment to discuss and innovate. Or just to have a team or project gathering. People using headsets (Meta Quest 2 and Pro) will have better immersion than joining the 3D via Teams. What is important is that people are aware that they can choose (unless meeting specifically requires that) whether to join in 3D or stick to 2D.

People need to understand when to use immersive meetings. This requires – surprise surprise – change management and adoption. This time champions network is also a big plus on discovering organizations use cases, examples, and preferences. First adopters are always important if immersive meetings are to be used. Show, not tell, will work for people a lot better. Perhaps organization should have some Quest devices where people can join the immersive meeting (or space) and interact with each other. Experiencing immersive spaces personally will make a difference. I know from the experience that the use cases you draft first are not the only ones – people are very clever to make new ones once they have adopted it onto use.

Custom spaces

Custom Mesh Worlds (or custom spaces or Mesh Platform) will make it possible to create customized spaces where people can join. There could be information that is shown, but it is especially useful if you want to present something in 3D. When the environment is different it can stimulate innovation and ideation in a new way. Or perhaps there needs to be a hang-around space for organization employees so they can meet beyond physical distances. Or a space where you can just zone out into a meditative environment that is filled with music that helps to drop some stress. For some it could be a mountain top, beach, river, sea, or space. For some it could be more abstract and energizing.

Mesh provides a rich set of out-of-box functionalities like synchronizing the experience for users across devices, on PCs and Quest 2 headsets. Core capabilities include avatars to represent participants, spatial audio to enable participants to experience sound as they would in an in-person setting, and the ability to interact with objects and the environment. With event management capabilities, it is possible to orchestrate real-time experiences by facilitating presentations, teleporting users within the environment, and triggering content and animations all in a predetermined time sequence.

With Mesh capabilities, you can create employee training, team onboarding, guided tours and much more. And, because Mesh is built on Microsoft 365, identity management and enterprise-grade privacy and security are built-in.

• Unity to create new 3D environments or port existing ones into your space.
• Cloud scripting to add interactivity by inserting logic and integrating with live backend business data
• Connecting triggers to actions
• Infuse AI
• Interactive content, such as games to objects to industrial digital twins
• Define physics to objects to give them realistic capabilities. Or go beyond and make the world full of wonder where gravity doesn’t work like in ours. There is no limit in the metaverse what you could do!

If you want to prepare for Mesh worlds, then Unity and 3D modeling should be on your to-learn list!

Prepare for the meshified future!

These are all points in the list organization should start planning already: what kind of experiences we want to offer our employees via Mesh? How it benefits them and us? Will they form better teams when they play games and have gatherings in a virtual world – instead of meeting face to face once a year or never).

I don’t think any organization can stay out of Microsoft Mesh– not when you are looking to coming years. Today we don’t have that many headsets and very few, especially large ones, will buy employees their own. We will see shared devices – until we need them at life outside work as well. As price drops, quality, size and capabilities evolve and there are more consumer services (not just games) to be consumed.. I have written a long time ago about tourism & traveling and how metaverse & 3D will be helping the industry. And not just helping, but it will be necessary (in the future) for all industries to adopt the metaverse to stay in the field. Just thinking opportunities it will be making available for training, learning, visualizing and experiencing tells me that. Early adopters will be taking pole positions in this race. Companies won’t be able to develop these new experiences to customer without their employees understanding what is possible, what is easy and what is not feasible.

There will be a day when we roam the metaverse as we do the internet today – in many ways we already do since we are spatially and persistently connecting the digital and physical world together. Later all this will be accessible in more ways than today: 2D, XR and 3D. Video calls don’t go anywhere, reading doesn’t disappear and we will meet face to face at the office and everywhere. But the world will expand and give new opportunities to improve, augment and enrich experience.

Start planning, securing resources, and preparing today for the moment when the future of collaboration is available in your organization. Do you need help with that? Feel free to contact me and let’s see what we can do together!

When Microsoft Mesh Platform and Immersive meetings arrive? I have to say: I don’t know. Fingers crossed we can see that at Ignite 2023, considering how much was already shared at Microsoft Build 2023. I will be keeping my eyes at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh/overview for any updates.

Pictures in this post also are from that page and are by Microsoft.