One of the companies at the center of the shift to the metaverse is Niantic. Known as Lightship, Niantic's platform is built to enable the real-world metaverse.

Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive “metaverse.” They expect that augmented- and mixed-reality enhancements will become more useful in people’s daily lives. Many worry that current online problems may be magnified if Web3 development is led by those who built today’s dominant web platforms.