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Real Cars, Virtual Worlds – The Future Of Car Shopping Moves To The Metaverse (With A Dash Of ChatGPT)

In the tech industry, the evolution of shopping from traditional e-commerce experiences (think Amazon and Shopify) to immersive 3D virtual showrooms (hello, virtual worlds and the metaverse!) has long been anticipated.

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Mitch Joel · Real Cars, Virtual Worlds – The Future Of Shopping – TechTuesday – 95.9 Star FM

The question now is:
Are customers eager and ready to embrace this new way of buying?

Fiat and Kia are taking the lead in answering that question with their introduction of metaverse car dealerships, powered in part by ChatGPT and AI-generated video technology.
Fiat’s collaboration with Microsoft and Touchcast has resulted in the development of a Metaverse store that allows customers to interact with a virtual or human “Fiat Genius” who can answer questions about Fiat’s cars in real-time with the help of ChatGPT.
Customers can even complete their purchase from home.
Kia Germany has also entered the metaverse game with its own Metaverse store, running on Engage, a metaverse platform for business.
This store allows customers to access the virtual showroom on any mobile device, computer, or with a VR headset.
While some customers may still prefer to see (and test-drive) their new ride in person, the fusion of physical and digital worlds was the promise of digital commerce.

Is revolutionizing the car-buying experience the place to start?

With ChatGPT and other advanced AI technologies, customers can (supposedly) experience a seamless and interactive buying journey in the metaverse.
As more retailers embrace this trend, the future of shopping and buying is set to become increasingly immersive and exciting and… different.

Here are five big questions to think about what’s next:

How might the use of ChatGPT in immersive digital showrooms change the way customers buy cars?
Will virtual showrooms like these become the norm for car shopping, or will they remain a niche experience for certain customers?
Could immersive digital showrooms powered by ChatGPT be used to sell other products besides cars (think everything else we buy online, including services like insurance, etc.)?
What are the potential drawbacks of relying on virtual product specialists to answer customers’ questions about cars, and how can these be addressed (like when the product is “not as advertised”)?
What might be the wider implications of fusing the physical and digital worlds for the future of retail and customer experiences?

Are consumers going to get the future shopping experience that we want and deserve?

This is what Heather Backman and I discussed over on 95.9 Star FM for a couple of minutes today.

What is Tech Tuesday?

Every Tuesday – for just a few minutes – I join Heather Backman (my old buddy from her days on CHOM FM and Jack 103) on the air at 95.9 Star FM to give a quick blast about the current state of technology, media and Internet culture.
We call it Tech Tuesday (and we do it in just a few minutes).

Once the segment goes live on 95.9 Star FM, I will post it here for you to listen in, learn, share and engage.

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.