In May 2022, two contractor pilots, each flying a Berkut 540 aircraft, entered a section of sky over Ventura County, California, that took on an added dimension. They had just entered a nascent military metaverse called the Combined Augmented Reality Battlespace Operation Network (CARBON).

Outfitted with customized augmented reality (AR) headsets, the pilots could see each other from their aircraft as they flew. But they could both see something else as well: a virtual Boeing KC-46 Pegasus Tanker, flying in formation with them. Each could see the same virtual tanker, but from their own perspectives based on their precise locations in the sky. While one pilot performed a refueling training mission with the virtual tanker, the other pilot observed in real-time.

This was a notable accomplishment: it was the first time that multiple live aircraft were connected into a common AR environment, outdoors, up in the sky. “Never has it been possible for multiple pilots to communicate simultaneously in AR like this,” said Brandon Harris, a test pilot for Red 6, the Florida-based company that performed the demonstration. He added: “One day, this training will produce the most elite warfighters in the world.”

Impressive as this was, it’s nothing compared to what trailblazers in this space have in mind for the not-too-distant future.

Visionaries like Daniel Robinson, Red 6’s founder and CEO, see this new half-real, half-augmented 3D environment eventually filling up with legions of very real warfighters from multiple services, all training and wargaming and mission planning together: “We are thrilled that our thesis has been validated and this achievement is a major step forward towards the creation of an outdoor Military Metaverse in which all warfighters, across all domains, can train together.”

Elsewhere in California, San Diego County is using the Accenture Virtual Experience Solution (AVEnueS) to train caseworkers how to work with families to determine their eligibility for various benefits. By creating an immersive virtual experience complete with frantic parents, distracted children, and ringing telephones, caseworkers can develop new interviewing skills, such as de-escalation techniques, needed to manage potentially stressful situations. And the results? Over 90% of participants say the training improved their skills in engaging individuals and provided realistic expectations of their new roles, with all saying they would recommend it to coworkers as a valuable training approach.

Welcome to the “Metaverse Continuum” – a spectrum of digitally enhanced worlds, realities, and business models that are rapidly taking shape and proliferating across enterprises. This continuum is bringing the next major wave of digital change to public and private sector enterprises alike, and government leaders need to start making big leaps forward in how they think about their agencies – today.

This Metaverse Continuum is where the real meets the unreal, the physical meets the virtual, and the authentic meets the synthetic. It is a world that holds enormous possibilities because it is where so many of today’s emerging technologies are converging. Extended reality, artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing, advanced sensors, 5G, the Internet of Things, digital twins, advanced modeling and simulation, and other advancements — each of these individually can be considered breakthrough technologies; but when combined in various ways, they create incredible new spaces, rich in capability, that have the power to transform the world as we know it.