 Well, that was a wonderful, wonderful introduction, and I can't be more thrilled to be here with you today. As mentioned, I'm with MediaMonks. We are one of the biggest and most awarded digital media agencies around the world, and we have a number of different specialisms that are, oh, none of my media seems to be working, so this is going to be fun. Things flash, we've got lots of pictures, but we'll have to imagine that. So we've got offices all around the world, some 10,000 people in 56 offices around the world, including Mumbai and Delhi. And as mentioned, my specialism is in new technology, that landscape, and specifically, Web3 and Metaverse, but increasingly, everybody wants to hear about AI, so we add that too. And it's funny because a year after year, it feels like we have so much pressure to respond to market demand because of the technology. The technology is driving what we're doing very quickly every day. And is it any way to make these animations work because this is not supposed to be time, it's supposed to be very flashy. Anyway, I'd like to give you a sense of kind of what we do and how we produce it. Anyway, happy to send you a PDF at another time. So the idea is that we've been overwhelmed year after year with new technology. It feels like every year there's something new. In 2019, it was the crypto craze and the prices of Bitcoin shot up. 2020, everyone was online playing games, Animal Crossing, Roblox, Fortnite. In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was making a Metaverse company, and nobody even understood what that meant. And then of course, 2022, NFTs, Web3, and now AI. It's a lot. And I am an emerging tech specialist. I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've never, ever seen the markets move as quickly as they are today. And so what I'd like to do is do a little bit of level setting and share with you the big picture of what's happening because it's not about one particular stream or another. It's not Metaverse versus Web3 versus AI. I wanted to raise up and to get the big picture and really give some perspective to what we're doing as marketers to cut through the jargon and the hype and really focus in on what's important with respect to how we can be successful in this new media landscape. So I want to talk about what I call the great convergence, how all of these new technologies are coming together, the value of culture, and specifically how we as marketers can take advantage of this historic moment and drive the change as opposed to letting technology and its demands and the demand of the popular imagination drive what we're doing. But first I want to start off with a little story, and that's about Erwan. It was a story that was first written by Samuel Butler over 100 years ago. And he imagined a young man who scaled the heights of a small island, very similar to New Zealand. And so he scales his high mountains and he finds a small group of people. And this colony of people had completely banned machines. Why, he wondered. Well, it turns out the Erwanians believed that machines would develop sentience and they would take over the world. This was over 100 years ago, as I said in 1852, before that was even a possibility. And at that time, in the United Kingdom, the mill workers were on strike because they feared that machines would take over their jobs. And today, near my house in Los Angeles, the writers, the actors, all of Hollywood's on strike for similar reasons. And so technology is powerful. It's changing how we work, how we relate with customers, and importantly, how we relate to one another with important consequences for everyone in this room. You may have noticed that Erwan is an anagram for nowhere. But today I really wanna focus on where we are today. This tremendous, powerful set of tools that we have at our disposal and how we can leverage them to take advantage for our companies. So first, again, many of you will be familiar with some of these concepts, but the metaverse, the metaverse is a set of persistent online worlds where you can work, play, meet, socialize, trade and sell objects. The difference is that it's in 3D, which is how we experience the world and which is why it is so powerful as a future computing platform. So the metaverse is platforms. It's augmented reality where you can hold up a phone and interact with the world in front of you. It's also games and experiences like Fortnite, like Roblox, and it can be on the mobile. But again, these are 3D worlds and the evolution of these 3D worlds and the way that people are interacting on them is radically different from any of the platforms that have preceded them. Now my father used to work at IBM. Some of you may be familiar, it's an old school company. At the time it was the Google of its day and at that time, the internet first emerged and he was a specialist in internet networking technology. As I've kind of inherited the spatial computing space. And he says that at that time, he would explain to people the richness of this information highway where you could go online and you could download absolutely anything. He said it was like having the New York Public Library in the back of your house. The New York Public Library you might know is that big building in Manhattan with the two lions on both sides where they filmed Ghostbusters. If any of you remember that film. But he said it was like having that but they never imagined the commercial arm. They never imagined that one day you could buy books off of this internet. They never imagined the advent of Amazon or even Uber. So you see with web three, we're very much at those early stages where you can buy, sell, trade assets, digital assets online. And yet we haven't quite conquered it yet. We're still in the very beginning stages. But effectively it's the blockchain based payment system that allows us that commercial part of the metaverse. Now last year we've heard a lot about NFTs and crypto and people were absolutely over it by now. If you say these words in any form, including LinkedIn, you're gonna get kind of canceled. People are gonna think, wait, you haven't figured it out. That's not a good thing. But now we just call it something different. It's called digital goods, digital assets, digital collectibles, all those things are okay. And web three is still a yes, because it's really again just talking about the commercial part of the metaverse. And I wanna talk to you about some examples of how you as marketers can take advantage of this new opportunity to monetize the metaverse and web three. Now for example, you can widen customer base, improve engagement and dramatically increase revenues. And I'll show you a couple of ideas how that's been done. Take example Nike, third quarter of last year they made approximately $185 million in sales. Why? Through selling digital goods. And I can assure you as one of the world's biggest and most successful digital media agencies, these don't cost that much to produce. And that with AI it's going to be even less. To have this twirling sneaker, digital sneaker, we produce it once. They can then produce it in infitesimal variations and I'd be happy to share with you some work that we've done for Nike and Adidas at any time. But the idea is that they sold some $90 million by Q3. So assuming it's like Q4 probably 200 million, so $100 million of digital goods without having any overhead, without having retail sales people, without transportation, any of that. They just go to the website and click it on. But even better than that is their customers were able to then take those assets and sell them again. And Nike still made $100 million. Now I don't know about you, but I would love to be the sales person who then goes to the boss and says, yeah, I just made 200 million bucks just selling digital goods. So digital goods have real value. And importantly also you have provenance. So that for those of you who are working B2C, one of the beautiful things about having digital goods is that you can then trace those because they're blockchain based. So all along the supply chain, you're able to understand where things come from, where they are now and who's got them. So that's a really, really exciting opportunity for marketers. A third space for the Web3 opportunity is in tokens. Now you can probably already read that Starbucks sold over 2,000 tokens at $100 each without giving away a single thing. That's a tremendous thing. That's a revolution in marketing. You're effectively saying this is an IOU for something and we're not even having to tell you what it is yet. But that's what's happening. When you have such a fervently excited customer base, this is the kind of relationship that you can establish with them. But be prepared to provide value over time. This has got to be a sustainable strategy. And one of the biggest failures that we saw last year with the NFTs is, and I'll show you in a minute, that not everyone provided the value that the customers were expecting. So, but you've to craft the strategy carefully and you can come up with very wonderful results. Again, imagine something really flashy here. That brings us to AI. Now, AI is a very powerful thing. According to Sunder Pichai, he himself said that this is probably one of the most exciting moments in history as much as the creation of, or the discovery of fire or electricity. And this is coming from the CEO of Google. I think that's saying a lot. But with generative AI, we're able to generate algorithms that can create content, any thing from scripts, movies, books. Anything you can imagine, prototypes for brands, they can do it in an instant. And that's incredibly powerful. And I should say that I am one of the first authors, the first author of a major book from a publishing house to have used AI as a book jacket. And it's so exciting to see all of the things that come to life. It doesn't mean that we don't still require human involvement, but it means that we're able to create assets at scale faster than ever before. And that means we're faster to market. And so that has powerful implications, particularly for global businesses. So when we talk about all these things, they actually come together. And they're growing significantly. By 2030, the metaverse is expected to be a $13 trillion business. And AI is now on schedule to deliver $14 trillion in market value. And so, again, flashy graphics here, but the metaverse for enterprise. I wanted to show off a little bit of all the powerful tools that we have to create incredible models. But it's been the motor behind enterprise. And we're able to drive results for B to C companies, because that's where we've really been seeing it, automotive, aeronautics, defense, design, architecture, engineering. That's where the metaverse is being evolved. Because a lot of people are saying, I don't see it yet. Where is it? None of my kids have a VR headset. I don't know anybody who's using the metaverse. But actually, it's around us every day. We're using AI already in chatbots and customer serving. We're using VR. We're using AR for QR codes for restaurants. We're using them for face filters. We're using them for all sorts of things. And it's only slowly becoming part of the public consciousness. But now we're seeing companies gain significant value from the design prototype and an evolution of product design using this. So GM, for example, was able to save $100 million by doing all the prototypes and the testing simulations in virtual reality before. And they also brought the prototypes three times faster to market, so significant business results. Again, here we had a simulation running that would show you how we were able to use simulations that will simultaneously show you the impact of infrastructure decisions on companies, as cities rather. And so from policy makers could click on these simulations and see what the difference in climate would be if you planted 10,000 trees or look at infrastructure projects and run simulations for emergency services. We've also seen big data analytics. This is a project we did for IBM for different scenarios from medicine, telehealth, as well as machinery and equipment. We're able to transform marketing pipelines. This is some work we did with Mondele, as in Google, where we took the cookie, which if you look at the surface of the Oreo cookie, it's actually quite evolved. And we had to create multiple iterations for markets around the world, because they actually produce different flavors every quarter. And all of these require new packaging, new design, everything. And we were able to bring to market 70% return on investment by the efficiencies that we created. So when we talk about Web 3, we talk about Metaverse. We talk about AI. None of these happen singularly. All of these things, acting together in concert, this is the great convergence. This is an historic moment. And so I believe it was a gentleman from Aditya, Mr. Rai who mentioned before, the illusion of innovation. And I really like that, the illusion of transformation because it's not limited anymore to digital transformation. It's much bigger. We are now all of us in this room creating history as we speak. This is an historic moment when it comes to technology and the transformation of digital technology. What we're looking at today is no longer digital transformation, but the transformation of digital. This is very, very powerful stuff. We are now in the virtual age with important implications on how we do business, not only B2B with our customers and our suppliers, but also with our constituents, our consumers. This is a radical cultural shift as much as it is technological shift. And so as far as I'm concerned, the biggest challenge today is not so much mastering 3D technologies. The biggest challenge over the next decade is really how to be relevant by authentically connecting with communities in 3D spaces. In a reciprocal relationship that connects with their values. So what we need to do is focus less on the what, the shiny technology and think more about the who and the where communities that live there, the platforms, the values that they share. Relevance, that's what we're after. So how do we do that? For me, the answer is culture, but why? Because online in these new communities, consumers are increasingly looking to these spaces to find a place of community, of identity, of belonging. And that can't come from product innovation alone. That has to come from a sense of culture and that we have to, through our decisions and our actions, define what that is. That is up to brands. That's up to all of you here in this audience. And so today, I also want to just focus a little bit on what that consumer behavior and their relationship with brands looks like going forward. And how to authentically communicate, whether it's in concerts on the web or doing whatever it is that you do in the real world, how can you translate that online so that whoever loves you in the real world is going to follow you to these new platforms, is going to engage in the content that you create there. Because just because you build it doesn't mean they're going to come. And then there's this. Now some of you may not be familiar with this, but Charmin is a toilet paper brand in the United States and they came up last year with an NFT. Now I understand the gold rushes out there and I understand the desire to capitalize on it. And it makes a lot of sense. And for them, they meant this as a bit of fun, kind of tongue-in-cheek. But I'm going to refer to our friend Captain Obvious when I say that not every brand needs to be online. You don't need to follow the herd. You don't need to create an NFT or digital asset or digital collectible. Again, think about what you do in the real life and authentically translate that onto these new platforms in a way that's relevant, sustainable and meaningful to your end group. Because at the end it's all about authenticity. In these virtual worlds, again flashy design, it's really cool. People expect to interact with your brand in new ways. And the people who are really going to do that are the ones who know it best and those are virtual natives. They're gaming. Gaming is a $385 billion industry and here in India it's a $5 billion industry with huge upside potential. Why? Because you have 442 million gamers in this country and by the way this is the second largest gaming cohort in the world. And the ones who are leading it are the virtual natives and that's the subject of my book. Digital Natives is a term that was first initiated in 1998. Mark Zuckerberg was probably a freshman in college before social media as we know it was even born and since then a lot has changed. We're no longer surf in cyberspace on the information highway. So why are we still using the term digital natives? Today we've got virtual natives. Kids who learn to type before they go to school, why? Because their parents probably met on a dating app. They were given phones instead of keys or rattles to play with, they were given phones. And so when they first arrived at school they already know how to type before they can write. These kids are virtual natives and they learned to swipe before they could even speak. So for them their reality online is as real as their reality offline. And in my book we came up with 10 things that characterized the way this generation thinks very differently. And by the way the age group I'm talking about is what they call the alphas. It's between five and five, 15 roughly. And it's going to dramatically change the future of education, work, play, and culture itself. I'm gonna run through these really quickly but if at any time you wanna have a call with me we can talk through what this means for you and your business, I'd be happy to do that but I'm just gonna be the top line for the sake of time. First is that virtual is the new digital. We've established that already I think. Reality is relative. For them the reality of their experience online is as real as here in this room. Because online I can have face-to-face conversations too. Online we can be friends and we can meet up as you would in real life. Identity is fluid because they're exploring their identity online in different characters, different costumes, and different scenarios. And that is important implications for how we relate with them in platforms and other spaces. Radical acceptance. People are more diverse young people than ever before. They're open to so much about the world and so therefore there's a different openness in how they want to be treated and the kind of messages that we deliver. Charisma is critical. Meaning that they're both susceptible to it but also because they're online all the time it's really important that they wanna hear that authenticity that voice back from the brands too. They want you to be as charismatic and personable as they are. Apprentice to experts. This is really important implications for the future of work because especially here where you have mobile telephony and a lot of people will be starting up businesses or trying to respond to businesses well outside their domain. Very ambitious people. They're gonna bring their own workflows and their experience as early experts because that's what they're doing on TikTok. They're using that as a platform to build their brand and their expertise. So it's gonna be harder to employ them, harder to retain them. Autonomous agents. Effectively the same thing. They have their brand and they're going to bring it to you and they're gonna expect you to listen to them a lot more than traditionally we do today. They're not hierarchical. They're not waiting their turn. Finally, image-alpha-bet devices and as a dependent appendage can create, consume, listen, we know that they use their phones for everything and therefore that's going to change the way their expectations of the workflows that you've created within your own company and how they expect to work with you and with your brand online. So if you have antiquated systems, interfaces, anything, they don't have patience for that and you stand a high risk of losing future customers. So these habits, this outlook is changing the way our expectations of brands and of society itself with very important implications. And in fact, Neil Postman who's a famous observer of online behaviors that all technological change is a trade-off. And for virtual natives, this young cohort in particular, they are forming new communities with clear cultural values and they're expecting us to cater to them, not vice versa. So with this cohort, they're expecting, in exchange for their data, they're expecting content and rewards at scale. So again, if you're going to create digital assets and collectibles, really be prepared for the longterm. What does that strategy look like? In India in particular, you have a tremendous opportunity as the world's second largest generation of virtual natives. How do you tap into this very, very rich source of new business and who are also going to help co-create your brand? Well, they're tech-to-savvy, they're entrepreneurial and they are many people and they're gonna have access to digital tools in a way that we've never before. In the same way that my father imagined, a static library, we have no idea of what this new marketplace will bring, but we are the architects. And so I talked about the great convergence of these new technologies, how Web3 Metaverse and AI all come together and how this is an historic moment for each one of you to put your own imprimatur on your brands and your brand's future. How this can be a tremendously valuable endeavor for you as a company to think about how to leverage Web3 assets or even start to track your supply chain more closely. How to tap in to the rich data and analytics that we can get through customer interactions on these new platforms. We talked too about the key successful innovation being culturally driven, that if you want to have this longstanding relationship with your customers online, you have to engage with them differently. And finally, the virtual natives as a core demographic for the future. And so again, cutting through the jargon and the hype, the big picture is effectively, what are we going to do? We're going to have to be more culturally relevant to engage with this new cohort. To authentically communicate them with them across 3D spaces in a reciprocal relationship. We talk about the cookie, we have to think much bigger than that. Because we need to connect with their values. So the great convergence is really about how technology is converged after all. It's really about how technology is being adopted and transformed by culture and driven by this new cohort of virtual natives. So are you ready to reinvent? I'm super excited to hear what you do, how you take this moment and forge the path of your company's future and your fortunes. And I hope very much that you will stay in touch, let me know. And if I can help you with your progress in any way, please let me know. I'd be delighted to hear from you. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you.