While critics have mocked Meta’s metaverse efforts, Mark Zuckerberg’s recent avatar chat shows the technology may be closer to reality than many thought.

Appearing on Lex Fridman’s podcast on September 28th, Zuckerberg and the AI researcher had a conversation entirely through photorealistic metaverse avatars. The avatars, powered by Meta’s Codec Avatars technology, were so realistic that Fridman admitted forgetting he wasn’t talking to Zuckerberg’s physical body.

Observers on social media were genuinely impressed by the demo. The technology tracks facial expressions and replicates them on customizable metaverse avatars. Zuckerberg noted that for consumers, photorealistic avatars are likely still years away. But this glimpse of the future shows Meta’s metaverse vision is progressing faster than critics predicted.

With $10 billion invested in metaverse development, Meta has faced ongoing ridicule over buggy demos. But this latest demonstration of nearly flawless avatars had even skeptics admitting the metaverse may be “officially real.” It suggests that while still early, Meta’s ambitious virtual world could soon cross the uncanny valley toward mass adoption.

As Meta refines its avatar technology and virtual interactions, the vision of an immersive metaverse may feel less like science fiction. If Meta can continue closing the realism gap, future avatar-based communications could profoundly reshape how people collaborate and experience virtual spaces.

This stunning metaverse demo comes alongside Meta AI, Meta's new AI assistant integrated across its apps and hardware. Together, sophisticated avatars and AI could unlock new creative and commercial opportunities in the converged virtual-physical world Meta envisions.

Mark Zuckerberg still faces an uphill battle in convincing people the metaverse is the next frontier. But this glimpse of photorealistic avatars interacting seamlessly could be an inflection point proving the skeptics wrong.