Peter Diamandis: Here’s How You’ll Buy Clothes in the Future

Peter Diamandis talks virtual reality as a major emerging technology in today’s featured Big Think interview. In his new book Bold(co-authored with fellow Big Think expert Steven Kotler), Diamandis explains how exponential entrepreneurs need to think about and work with exponential technologies set to take the jump from deceptive to disruptive. In 2015 and beyond, virtual reality is that technology:

For virtual reality to transition from underrated dormancy to dynamic disruptor, it has to demonstrate its usefulness in making consumers’ lives easier. As an example, Diamandis offers a scenario in which he goes clothes-shopping in a VR store:

“In the future what I project happening is at home you will have yourself 3D scanned down to the millimeter where it’s a private file, but my body shape exactly is in a file. I then enter into a virtual world and I have an AI there that is my shopping advisor. It says, ‘Peter, what are you looking for?’ I’m saying, ‘You know I’m going to this amazing Hollywood party tomorrow night and I’m looking for something that’s stylish. I want to wear black.’ And all of a sudden in this virtual world everything I see is in my size, in the colors I want, recommended by this AI.”

Diamandis would then have the option to watch a fashion show in which his virtual reality avatar models fashions until he decides the one he wants. After that, the outfit is either custom-made for him right there via 3D printing or delivered automatically that afternoon by robots from a local factory. And just like that, Diamandis has circumvented the mall, a tailor, and the current Amazon online shopping model as a whole.

“So it’s an experience where when I want something, I know I will get exactly what I’m looking for, fitting for me. So that’s the future of the virtual retail store if you would and why I think virtual reality is going to do effectively a hundred-fold improvement over what the Amazon experience is today.”

That’s a visceral example of virtual reality’s capabilities to reshape the way business is done. By disrupting both brick-and-mortar clothes stores and traditional online shopping, VR will have taken a major step forward in its exponential growth cycle. Smart and savvy exponential entrepreneurs would therefore be wise to find ways to explore, innovate, and create wealth from this emerging technology before it’s too late.