Predictions for 2023: competition for Meta's metaverse, Apple's AR/VR headset debut, generative AI integration into products, continuing crypto gloom, and more
with an Apple headset debut 🔮AI goes from toy to tool with it coming to more software 🔮 iPhone RE (Regulators' Edition) https://www.wsj.com/... Christopher Mims / @mims : Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2023 @JoannaStern @nicnguyen and I look ahead at what may prove to be one of the most interesting years in tech in a decade, at least... https://www.wsj.com/... @wsj : An Apple mixed-reality headset? Netflix password crackdowns? Our tech columnists predict what 2023 will bring. https://www.wsj.com/... But, we should also spare a moment to reflect on the gadgets and software that headed into the sunset in 2022. https://www.wsj.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the WSJ columnists' annual lookahead, and its center of gravity is a single hardware bet: after years of reports on the challenges of building a mass-market AR headset, Apple is predicted to finally show its mixed-reality device in 2023 — one that Gurman reported would be built for short bursts of gaming and content rather than all-day wear. The same package calls the year for generative AI moving from demo to shipped product, rival pressure on Meta's metaverse, Netflix password-sharing crackdowns, and continued crypto weakness.
The stakes are visible in the surrounding coverage: AR/VR startup funding had already collapsed — down 74% year over year to $800M from October 2022 to March 2023 per PitchBook — leaving the industry explicitly hoping an Apple debut would lure venture capital back into the category.
First-order effects
- Apple's headset debut puts it in direct competition with Meta's metaverse platform, forcing both companies to define the consumer use case before the other does.
- Netflix's predicted password-sharing crackdown immediately changes terms for account holders who share logins outside their households.
Second-order effects
- Whether VCs return to AR/VR startups hinges on Apple's launch validating demand — the PitchBook funding collapse makes the category dependent on one company's product cycle rather than its own momentum.
- Generative AI shipping inside mainstream software forces every competing productivity and consumer app vendor to answer with integrated features or cede differentiation.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, 2023 marks the rotation of consumer-tech investment away from crypto and open-ended metaverse spending toward two narrower bets: AI embedded in existing products and a new hardware platform defined by Apple's constraints (short-session use, not all-day wear).
- Annual prediction pieces like this — echoing the paper's 2019 trends list of foldables, 5G, and cashierless retail — increasingly function as agenda-setting documents that competitors and investors treat as a consensus map for the year.
The trend: Consumer tech is rotating out of the crypto-and-metaverse speculation cycle and into AI-infused software plus a first serious attempt at mass-market mixed-reality hardware.