Social Media company, Meta, is pushing a new frontier that will take the physical workspace to the virtual realm—the Metaverse. This was one of the key takeaways from the company’s annual Connect conference held on Tuesday.

At the conference, Mark Zuckerberg was joined by Microsoft chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella, and Accenture chair and CEO Julie Sweet, to share new partnerships that will accelerate the future of work.

Detailing how Meta’s Virtual Reality Headset, Quest Pro, was built with work in mind, Zuckerberg said the partnership with Microsoft is intended to bring its productivity tools to Meta Quest devices and Meta work experiences.

This includes Microsoft Teams immersive meeting experiences for Meta Quest, Microsoft Windows 365 for Meta Quest, Microsoft 365 app experiences for Quest, a Microsoft Teams/Workrooms integration, Meta Avatars in Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory support for Quest.

He said the partnership with Accenture will help businesses adopt Meta’s hardware and software, integrated with Microsoft tech so that businesses can bring the future of work to their people sooner.

What they are saying

Speaking during the conference, Zuckerberg said: “So, the main reason that we’re in this space is that we think that VR can be very powerful for social connection, and with the Quest Pro, we want to bring more of that into the work context as well, where Microsoft already has some incredibly successful products in the market.”

“The Meta Quest Pro is the first in our new line of advanced headsets, built to expand what’s possible in VR. It takes what people love about Meta Quest 2 and adds a bunch of new technologies to help you do more in the metaverse. It’s made for collaboration and creativity, and with mixed reality built in, it lets you do things that haven’t been possible before. All in a beautiful design that’s comfortable to wear. Whether you’re looking to work in a new way, or you just want the very best experiences available today,” he added.

Other key takeaways from the conference

• Meta disclosed that the VR developer ecosystem is booming. To date, over $1.5 billion has been spent on games and apps in the Meta Quest Store even as a host of new games and fitness experiences are underway.
• Meta also announced a series of new features for Horizon Workrooms, the VR space for teams to connect and collaborate. The new features include more expressive avatars, breakout groups with spatial audio, sticky notes for the whiteboard, a new stylus controller tip for clearer writing and a personal office for individual productivity where you can access large virtual screens and utilize the full-color passthrough mode.

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