It's Monday morning, and you're in Hong Kong having coffee with your new boss, who is a virtual robot powered by artificial intelligence. 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.
This might seem like something from a science fiction book, but it's the future of work promised by the metaverse and a Chinese company called NetDragon. They recently appointed an AI-powered virtual humanoid robot as the rotating CEO of their flagship subsidiary, Fujian NetDragon Websoft.
The metaverse is a 3D virtual world that people enter through virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets to do business, hang out, and play games through their virtual avatars or holograms. NetDragon Websoft is betting heavily on this new digital world and its related technologies.
The company's vice chairman, Dr. Simon Leung, said, "From our standpoint, the metaverse is here to stay, and an AI CEO is part of the plan to go in there. We are doing this for real."
The AI-driven virtual robot CEO, Tang Yu, represents a major milestone for the company towards being a "metaverse organization." NetDragon believes this move will pioneer the use of AI to transform corporate management and improve operational efficiency.