Verse Digital’s AI World Fair far exceeds engagement expectations
Focus on gamification and ‘Learn2Earn’ participation strategy pays off with average dwell time close to four hours.
Main Stage, AI World Fair, Decentraland
Verse Digital’s AI World Fair which ran from October 25th to the 27th boasted over 40 speakers from across the nascent AI, metaverse and Web3 industries.
With a brief to demystify the technology, issues and opportunities, invited guests—including Yasmina Benkhoui from Nvidia, SingularityNET’s Dr. Ben Goertzel, Decentraland’s Yemel Jardi, metaverse thought leader Dr. Jane Thomason, game industry veteran Kelly Vero, Sebastien Borget, COO of The Sandbox, and James Duez and Ben Taylor from Rainbird—covered an expansive range of topics.
From fashion to ethics, NPCs to video games, AI was dissected across 17 sessions of keynotes, panel discussions and fireside chats.
(Virtual) world-beating engagement
Increasingly, brands are coming around to the importance of session or ‘dwell’ times on metaverse and virtual social platforms.
At the Roblox Developers Conference in September, the company shared its figures for average daily session times in Q2 (2023). The platform, or more specifically its users, racked up an impressive 2.3 hours of engagement per day.
While we’d never compare a targeted, three-day industry event to average attendance in the global juggernaut that is Roblox, we’re immensely proud of the following stat:
3 hours, 58 mins
— average daily session times at the AI World Fair
So what exactly were users doing for all that time?
Speaker sessions
All sessions were broadcast on the Main Stage, and scheduled to commence each day at 6pm UTC with repeats from 2am UTC. This was designed to ensure content was available at a reasonable time of day for as much of the global audience as possible.
Standout sessions included:
Day 1
There are few people more qualified to discuss artificial intelligence than Dr. Ben Goertzel. The creator of Sophia The Robot, and founder of Singularity.NET, Ben opened the event with a wide-ranging keynote.
Ben was followed by James Duez from Rainbird. Living up to the promise of the event, to demystify AI, Ben led attendees through the key concepts in what was a popular session.
Yasmina Benkhoui from Nvidia touched on one of the key early features of AI integration — non-player characters (NPCs). She explored the evolution of NPC design and the new capabilities made possible by progress in areas like Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, emotion/social intelligence, and AI powered animation.
Day 2
The Decentraland Foundation’s Yemel Jardi spoke with Stacey Engle from Twin Protocol about how the virtual world is using AI and how he sees the technology evolving in the space — from the integration of AI-powered NPCs to the impact of generative AI on the metaverse ecosystem as a whole.
Generative AI consultant, educator, and speaker, Franki Tabor looked at the evolution of AI-powered avatars to sentient beings. Franki broke down the elements of the idea and its potential impacts on humankind — for better or worse.
Day 3
The COO and — alongside CEO Arthur Madrid — driving force behind the phenomenon that is The Sandbox, Sebastien Borget discussed how the virtual playground has adopted AI and its plans for the future.
Dr. Jane Thomason, Diego Borgo, and Kelly Vero discussed how AI is being adopted by Web3 and metaverse companies, the implications of such integrations, and what we can expect in the coming months and years.
CEO of Gamebook Studio, Ulrike Küchler; Jagex’s Neil McClarty; co-founder and CEO of Tailwind Studios, Mike Allender; and Marja Konttinen, ex-Rovio and Decentraland Marketing Director, explored the impacts of AI on the gaming industry and how studios and indies are using it to change the face of play.
AI-powered Art
The AI World Fair was blessed to have an incredible array of artists, currently using AI to create jaw-dropping works, exhibit at the event.
Credit: Cris Cerqueira
The line-up included Civort, Cris Cerqueira, Jannes Punita, Margarida Barreto, Marrte, Marta Paulaviciute, Nina Sabina Caballero, Tazibao and Thomas Wright.
Credit: Tazibao
Games and rewards
Designed specially for the AI World Fair, AIWF Points was the official virtual currency for the event. AIWF Points were earned by participating in quests, games, puzzles, and through attendance at panels and keynote sessions.
AIWF Points could be used to purchase digital assets in the form of wearables and other digital items. Rare prizes were also dropped by drones throughout the three days. It was not uncommon, as you were making your way through the district, to receive an alert to look to the skies, and find loot-filled crates drifting to the ground.
Not surprisingly, the stats for this component of the event exceeded expectations:
Attendance figures
Here’s how things tallied up over the three days:
“The nearly four hours of dwell time per player is like watching two movies back-to-back; only we delivered pure engagement. I’m super happy that we were able to generate this level of participation. It justifies our company’s belief that gamification of content and experiences is truly the gateway to web3 and the metaverse for brands.”
Special thanks must go to James Ashton and the team from Vegas City for their expertise and hard work. Plus Sam Hamilton, Emma Mansfield, Celeste Acosta, Kim Currier and the marketing team from the Decentraland Foundation.
