How the Metaverse Will Impact the Vision Care Journey

Seemingly overnight, the metaverse – shared worlds driven by virtual products and experiences that are highly immersive and interactive - is everywhere. What does the metaverse mean for healthcare, vision care, patients, and members? In the Global Innovation Center’s Futurist Report, Eye on the Metaverse, we explore the metaverse and its potentially game-changing implications for and impact on vision care.  

Here’s what we found. 

1. First, the metaverse is here and growing: Today, leading market research companies estimate the metaverse market at around $60B, with Bloomberg Intelligence forecasting it to grow to $800B by 2024. Meanwhile, Citi says the metaverse market could reach $13T globally by 2030. 
    
2. Second, the metaverse is already driving transformations in care. Surgical researchers at John Hopkins University have partnered with the virtual reality company Osso VR to test virtual surgical training. Osso reports the immersive training improves surgery skills 230% compared to traditional methods. The UK-based mental health tech startup Oxford VR is using the metaverse to simulate everyday activities as exposure therapy, with agoraphobia patients reporting a 47% reduction in symptoms, according to research published by the NHS.
    
3. Third, innovation is heating up around technologies bridging the metaverse with vision care and eyewear. With a nod from the FDA, metaverse-adjacent technologies are raising millions in startup capital: The startup Nreal, a developer of ready-to-wear mixed reality glasses, raised $60M in venture capital in March, bringing its total to $246M with nearly $200M coming in just 12 months. Big tech is investing billions in AR glasses and metaverse-related glasses technology.

These findings reflect robust and growing vision care innovation in the metaverse. Eye on the Metaverse identifies the four stages of the vision care journey that are most likely to be impacted by the metaverse, with key takeaways in each: 

• Discovery: Healthcare providers can better reach consumers in the metaverse through tactics like in-experience advertisements; branding in virtual worlds and fully virtual benefit fairs.  
• Engagement: The metaverse is transforming worker and patient experiences through approaches like virtual onboarding, VR for training, and immersive patient education. 
• Care: Our research details various innovations in both remote and in-person care transformed by the metaverse. Currently, vision care vendors such as heru and Luminopia are using AR/VR to screen for disease, create fun games that help train eyes, and pilot assistive technology to help people with impaired vision navigate the real world.  
• Post-exam: Vision care can transform remote fitting and shopping for eyewear with technologies, like AI-powered fitting and virtual fashion, that are growing in use across the vision care landscape.  

Across sectors, Eye on the Metaverse highlights numerous companies leveraging the metaverse to drive growth, value, and innovation in vision care. 

Continued innovation will only raise expectations and is already creating consumer interest and demand for metaverse-adjacent technologies. While the concept of the metaverse is still in the early days, its longer- term implications are significant. As the technology powering the metaverse matures, many parts of our lives, such as shopping, banking, seeing doctors, and even dating, might be done in immersive, virtual worlds.

You can watch highlights of the report below and read the full Eye on the Metaverse here.