Exploring Future Worlds and the Potential of our Digital Selves 

By the year 2028, how much more immersive and integrated might digital worlds become in our daily lives? And how far might we augment our skills and capabilities with our digital avatars to fully engage with these digital worlds? 

These were among the many questions asked during a one-day, in-person summit that brought together internal participants from Autodesk Research’s M&E team, Autodesk’s XR Incubation team, and external subject matter experts from collaborative research partner Meta Reality Labs and Technology Center resident teams Duality Robotics and Voltaku. 

The goal of the experience was to test participants’ ideas and challenge biases while ideating towards future states of companies creating digital avatars and worlds over a 5-year horizon. As an additional constraint, the teams examined topics from the perspective of small and large companies, and explored how they might capitalize on the asymmetry in company size to build beneficial collaborative relationships.

By the end of the workshop, participants created a series of imagined news headlines that represent future states inspired by the technology trends discussed during the workshop.

Two of the headlines were chosen and developed as full articles called Future Worlds | Digital Selves. These provocations are intentionally polarizing. They are meant to catalyze a debate about our choices and agency in the possible futures we face as we continue exploring the digital realm and our place within it.

We hope you enjoy these narratives.

Explore Future Worlds | Digital Selves

Gabby Patin is a Strategic Research Manager, Angie Foss is a Network Development Manager, and Hilmar Koch is Research Director, Media and Entertainment, at Autodesk.