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REQUIREMENTS FOR MULTILATERAL AND COLLABORATIVE METAVERSE – Part 1: General

CONTENTS

• FOREWORD

• INTRODUCTION

• 1 Scope

• 2 Normative references

• 3 Terms and definitions

  • 3.1 Terms and definitions
  • 3.2 Abbreviated terms

• 4 General Considerations for Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse Systems

  • 4.1 Overview of MCM Systems
    • 4.1.1 Definition and Concept of MCM
    • 4.1.2 Position of MCM within the Metaverse Ecosystem
  • 4.2 Fundamental Characteristics of MCM Systems
    • 4.2.1 Collaboration-centered Service Objectives
    • 4.2.2 Simultaneous Multilateral Participation
    • 4.2.3 Shared Virtual Context
    • 4.2.4 Coordinated Roles and Interdependent Activities
    • 4.2.5 Real-time Reciprocal Interaction
    • 4.2.6 Coherence of Shared Session State
    • 4.2.7 Participant Presence and Mutual Awareness
    • 4.2.8 Continuity of Collaborative Participation
  • 4.3 Representative MCM Service Domains
    • 4.3.1 Professional Work and Organizational Collaboration
    • 4.3.2 Education and Training
    • 4.3.3 Healthcare and Care Services
    • 4.3.4 Industrial Engineering and Operations
    • 4.3.5 Commerce and Customer Services
    • 4.3.6 Public and Civic Services
    • 4.3.7 Entertainment, Culture, and Creative Participation
  • 4.4 Technical Considerations for MCM Systems
    • 4.4.1 Heterogeneous Access and Participant Representation
    • 4.4.2 Multimodal Interaction and Temporal Coordination
    • 4.4.3 Shared state and Data Consistency
    • 4.4.4 Identity, Roles, and Access
    • 4.4.5 Interoperability and Service Continuity
    • 4.4.6 Distributed Processing and Service Scalability
    • 4.4.7 AI-assisted and Autonomous Participation
    • 4.4.8 Physical-digital Integration
    • 4.4.9 Trust, Security, Privacy, and Safety

• 5 Classification of MCM Services

  • 5.1 Classification Framework Overview
  • 5.2 Domain-based Classification
  • 5.3 Media-based Classification
  • 5.4 Technology-based Classification

• 6 Gap Analysis

  • 6.1 Current international Standardization Activities
  • 6.2 Gaps in Existing Standards
  • 6.3 Recommendations for Future Standardization

• Annex A (informative) Roadmap for MCM Standard Development

• Appendix Z — IEC Word Template Scaffolding (not part of the Technical Report)

FOREWORD

1. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To this end and in addition to other activities, IEC publishes International Standards, Technical Specifications, Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and Guides (hereafter referred to as "IEC Publication(s)"). Their preparation is entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested in the subject dealt with may participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-governmental organizations liaising with the IEC also participate in this preparation. IEC collaborates closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by agreement between the two organizations.

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IEC 6XXXX has been prepared by IEC technical Committee TC 100: Audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment. It is Technical Report.

The text of this Technical Report is based on the following documents:

Draft	Report on voting
XX/XX/FDIS	XX/XX/RVD

Full information on the voting for its approval can be found in the report on voting indicated in the above table.

The language used for the development of this Technical Report is English.

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The committee has decided that the contents of this document will remain unchanged until the stability date indicated on the IEC website under webstore.iec.ch in the data related to the specific document. At this date, the document will be

• reconfirmed,
• withdrawn, or
• revised.

INTRODUCTION

As metaverse technologies have matured, a distinct class of services has emerged in which the simultaneous presence and active collaboration of multiple participants forms the fundamental premise of the service itself. These services, referred to in this document as Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse (MCM) systems, constitute a subset of the metaverse specifically designed to enable purposeful, real-time collaboration among two or more simultaneous participants. MCM systems differ structurally and functionally from general metaverse platforms designed primarily for individual use or incidental social interaction, in that collaboration is not incidental but the fundamental condition for service delivery.

MCM systems are increasingly adopted across a broad range of domains, including remote work and collaboration, education and training, industrial manufacturing, healthcare, entertainment, commerce, and public administration. In each of these contexts, the realization of a coherent collaborative experience depends on the consistent integration of spatial, audio, video, avatar, and identity information across heterogeneous platforms and devices. This integration challenge is not adequately addressed by existing international standards, which have largely focused on platform architecture, device specifications, and content formats rather than on the service-level requirements specific to MCM. The absence of dedicated international standards for MCM systems has resulted in fragmented implementations across the industry, leaving cross-platform interoperability, avatar and digital asset portability, and consistent identity management largely unresolved.

MCM systems are implemented and realized through multimedia systems and equipment. This positions IEC TC 100 as the appropriate forum for MCM-specific standardization activities, given its established role as the leading standardization body in the area of multimedia systems and equipment.

The IEC 6XXXX — Requirements for Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse (MCM) Systems series consists of the following parts:

Part 1 : General; Part 2 : Service Requirements; and Part 3 : Media Requirements.

Part 1 of IEC TR 6XXXX (this document) defines MCM systems and establishes their conceptual boundaries relative to general metaverse services, presents a classification of MCM services across three complementary dimensions of domain of application, media type, and enabling technology, and identifies gaps in existing international standards with respect to MCM service requirements, with recommendations for future standardization priorities. This Technical Report is informative in nature and serves as the analytical and conceptual foundation upon which subsequent parts of this series are developed.

Part 2 of IEC 6XXXX describes common service requirements applicable to MCM systems across major domain categories, including but not limited to work and collaboration, education, commerce, entertainment, and healthcare. Domain-specific requirements that extend beyond the common framework are addressed in dedicated sub-parts, organized in accordance with the service classifications established in Part 1.

Part 3 of IEC 6XXXX describes common media requirements applicable to MCM systems, addressing the general technical characteristics of media types including audio, video, 3D objects, haptics, and spatial data. Media-specific requirements that extend beyond the common framework are addressed in dedicated sub-parts, organized in accordance with the media classifications established in Part 1.

1 Scope

This document describes the general considerations for Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse (MCM) systems, including the definition and key characteristics of MCM, the classification of MCM services by domain, media, and technology, and a gap analysis of existing international standards with respect to MCM service requirements.

For the purposes of this document, MCM is defined as a subset of the metaverse in which two or more participants simultaneously interact within a shared virtual space for a common collaborative purpose. The following are explicitly excluded from the scope of this document:

• single-user metaverse experiences in which collaboration is absent or incidental;
• multiplayer environments in which interaction is competitive rather than collaborative;
• asynchronous virtual environments in which participants do not share simultaneous presence; and
• general metaverse platform infrastructure not specific to MCM service requirements.

2 Normative references

The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.

• IEC TR 63614-1, Multimedia systems and equipment for metaverse – Part 1: General
• IEC TS 63614-2, Multimedia systems and equipment for metaverse – Part 2: Classification
• IEC TR 63614-3, Multimedia systems and equipment for metaverse – Part 3: Gap analysis

3 Terms and definitions

For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.

ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:

• IEC Electropedia: available at https://www.electropedia.org/
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp

3.1 Terms and definitions

3.1.1 metaverse

digital-based virtual environment in which users, represented by avatars, access a virtual space through a network using a device to experience various activities through digital content and platforms

3.1.2 multilateral and collaborative metaverse (MCM)

subset of the metaverse specifically designed to enable purposeful, real-time collaboration among two or more simultaneous participants within a shared virtual space, where collaborative participation is the fundamental condition for service delivery

Note 1 — MCM systems are distinguished from general metaverse services in that the service itself cannot be constituted without the presence of multiple collaborative participants.

3.1.3 avatar

digital representation of a participant within a virtual space, capable of conveying spatial presence, movement, and non-verbal expression

3.1.4 session

bounded instance of MCM service operation during which multiple participants engage in real-time collaborative interaction within a shared virtual space

3.1.5 spatial presence

perceptual experience of being co-located with other participants in a shared virtual space, enabled by spatial audio, positional awareness, and immersive rendering

3.1.6 cross-platform interoperability

capability of MCM systems to maintain a coherent collaborative experience across heterogeneous platforms and devices without loss of functional or experiential continuity

3.1.7 digital asset

digitally represented object within an MCM environment that holds functional or economic value, including but not limited to avatars, virtual goods, and environmental content

3.1.8 Quality of Experience (QoE)

degree to which a user perceives the overall performance and suitability of an MCM service, encompassing technical, contextual, and perceptual dimensions

3.1.9 AI agent

autonomous software entity that participates in an MCM environment, capable of perceiving context, generating responses, and interacting with human participants in real time

3.2 Abbreviated terms

Abbreviation	Term
AI	Artificial intelligence
AR	Augmented Reality
DID	Decentralized identifier
IoT	Internet of Things
MCM	Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse
MR	Mixed Reality
NPC	Non-Player Character
QoE	Quality of Experience
QoS	Quality of Service
VR	Virtual Reality
WoT	Web of Things
XR	Extended reality

4 General Considerations for Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse Systems

4.1 Overview of MCM Systems

4.1.1 Definition and Concept of MCM

The metaverse encompasses digitally mediated virtual environments in which users, represented directly or indirectly through digital identities or avatars, participate in activities within a virtual space. These activities include individual content consumption, social interaction, entertainment, commerce, education, industrial operations, and other forms of digitally mediated experience. Within this broader concept, Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse (MCM) systems constitute a distinct category of metaverse systems in which purposeful and coordinated collaboration among two or more simultaneous participants is the primary objective and an essential condition of service delivery.

An MCM service provides a shared virtual environment in which participants perceive and interact with a common context, including other participants, digital objects, information resources, and environmental states. Participants perform coordinated activities toward a shared or mutually aligned objective. Such activities include joint decision-making, co-creation, learning, training, consultation, design, operation, performance, service provision, or public participation. In the context of MCM, the term “multilateral” refers to the involvement of two or more interacting participants whose actions can affect a shared session, shared objects, or other participants. The term “collaborative” refers to coordinated interaction directed toward a common activity, objective, or outcome. Collaborative participation does not require all participants to perform identical functions. Participants have different roles, responsibilities, access privileges, or levels of authority within the same MCM session.

MCM is defined primarily from a service perspective and is not dependent on a particular device, platform, degree of immersion, or implementation architecture. An MCM service is accessed through head-mounted displays, personal computers, mobile devices, spatial computing devices, or other multimedia systems and equipment. Similarly, the use of extended reality, avatars, spatial audio, artificial intelligence, digital twins, or other enabling technologies does not by itself constitute an MCM service. The presence of multiple users alone is insufficient to classify a metaverse service as MCM. Multi-user environments in which interaction is incidental, loosely connected, exclusively competitive, or primarily based on independent content consumption do not fall within the conceptual boundary of MCM. Competitive or individual activities are included in an MCM service, provided that they form part of a broader collaborative process and that the primary service objective depends on coordinated participation. Accordingly, the defining condition of an MCM system is that the intended collaborative function or service outcome cannot be fully realized through the participation of a single user acting independently.

4.1.2 Position of MCM within the Metaverse Ecosystem

MCM systems form a subset of the broader metaverse ecosystem. They do not represent a separate type of virtual environment defined by a specific platform or technology. Rather, they represent a service-oriented category distinguished by the structural role of collaboration in the design and operation of the service. General metaverse services support multiple users, social interaction, avatar communication, shared events, commerce, or content creation. However, such services remain operable for an individual user, and interaction with other users may be optional, incidental, or secondary to the principal service objective. By contrast, an MCM system is designed around a shared collaborative session. Participants interact within a common virtual environment, maintain awareness of shared activities and states, and contribute to a collaborative process or outcome. The service value arises primarily from coordinated interaction among participants rather than from the independent experience of each participant.

MCM systems are related to several adjacent service and technology areas, including virtual worlds, immersive communication, collaborative computing, digital twin environments, online multiplayer services, and conventional video collaboration systems. However, no single one of these areas is equivalent to MCM. MCM is distinguished by the combined presence of the following conditions:

• two or more simultaneous participants;
• a shared virtual environment or shared digitally mediated context;
• coordinated interaction among participants;
• a common or mutually aligned objective; and
• a service function or outcome that depends on multilateral participation.

Table 1 summarizes the principal differences between general metaverse services and MCM systems.

Table 1. Comparison of general metaverse services and MCM Systems

Attribute	General Metaverse	Multilateral and Collaborative Metaverse
Primary service objective	Individual experience, content consumption, social interaction, entertainment, or other activities are performed independently	Purposeful collaboration and coordinated participation toward a shared activity, objective, or outcome
Participation structure	Support either individual or multiple user participation	Requires two or more simultaneous participants for the collaborative function
Role of interaction	Interaction with other users is optional, incidental, social, or competitive	Interaction among participants is integral to service delivery
Shared context	Users occupy the same environment without sharing a common task, state, or objective	Users share an environment, task context, resources, objects, or service state
Participant roles	Roles are undefined or unrelated to the service outcome	Participants have differentiated but coordinated roles, responsibilities, permissions, or authority
Service operability	Generally used or experienced by a single user	Generally used or experienced by multi-users
Value creation	Generated primarily through individual experience or optional interaction	Generated through the collaborative process, coordinated activity, or shared result

As shown in Table 1, general metaverse services provide shared virtual spaces and support interaction among multiple users without requiring coordinated participation. Individual users independently consume content, explore virtual environments, create digital items, or engage in optional social interaction, while the principal service remains available regardless of the participation of others. In an MCM system, participants are connected through a shared activity, task, or service process. Their actions occur within a common context and influence shared objects, environmental states, other participants, or the outcome of the collaborative session. Participants assume different roles, responsibilities, permissions, and levels of authority, while these differentiated roles remain coordinated toward a common or mutually aligned objective. The participation structure and service operability identified in Table 1 provide the principal basis for distinguishing MCM systems from general metaverse services. A service qualifies as an MCM service when its intended function, collaborative process, or shared outcome depends on the simultaneous and coordinated participation of two or more participants. The mere presence of multiple users within the same virtual environment does not satisfy this condition.

The conceptual boundary established in this subclause provides the basis for the fundamental characteristics described in 4.2, the representative service domains described in 4.3, and the multidimensional classification framework specified in Clause 5.

4.2 Fundamental Characteristics of MCM Systems

MCM systems exhibit a set of common characteristics related to the structure of collaborative participation, the organization of shared activities, and the continuity of interaction within a shared virtual environment. These characteristics apply across the representative service domains described in 4.3, although their relative importance and detailed realization differ according to the purpose and operational context of each domain.

4.2.1 Collaboration-centered Service Objectives

An MCM service is organized around a collaborative objective that connects the activities of all participants within a shared session. The objective represents a common activity, task, process, or outcome toward which participants contribute through coordinated interaction.

Collaborative objectives include joint decision-making, co-creation, instruction and learning, consultation, design review, operational coordination, performance, and public participation. The specific objective differs across service domains, but the collaborative process remains central to the operation and value of the service. The collaborative objective also provides the basis for the organization of participant roles, interaction procedures, shared resources, and session activities. Individual actions acquire meaning through their relationship with the actions of other participants and with the shared objective. Interaction that remains optional, incidental, or unrelated to the principal service outcome does not constitute collaboration in the context of MCM.

4.2.2 Simultaneous Multilateral Participation

MCM services involve the simultaneous participation of two or more participants within a shared virtual session. Simultaneous participation refers to overlapping active presence during which participants exchange information, observe actions, and adjust their own activities in response to others. The number of participants varies according to the service domain and use case. An MCM session ranges from a small collaborative group, such as a medical consultation or design review, to a large-scale session, such as a virtual public event or civic consultation.

The participant group consists primarily of human participants and, in certain services, includes AI agents that perform collaborative or supporting functions. Regardless of participant type, each active participant has an identifiable relationship with the shared activity and with other participants in the session. Asynchronous activities, including preparation, review, recording, and follow-up, form supplementary elements of an MCM service. The principal collaborative phase, however, depends on simultaneous interaction among multiple participants.

4.2.3 Shared Virtual Context

MCM participants interact within a shared virtual context that provides a common basis for collaborative activity. The shared virtual context includes the virtual environment, participant representations, digital objects, information resources, task status, and other session-related elements perceived or accessed by participants. A shared virtual context does not require identical visual presentation for every participant. Views and interaction interfaces differ according to participant role, access device, permissions, or service function.

Despite these differences, participants retain a consistent understanding of the shared environment, collaborative activity, and relevant object or task states. The shared context supports situational awareness by enabling participants to recognize where an activity takes place, who participates, which objects or information are involved, and how the collaborative process progresses. This common understanding distinguishes an MCM session from independent user activities that occur within the same platform without a shared task or coordinated context.

4.2.4 Coordinated Roles and Interdependent Activities

Participants in an MCM system perform roles associated with the collaborative objective. These roles define relationships among participants and structure responsibilities, permissions, authority, access to information, and control over shared resources. Participant roles differ according to the service domain. Examples include employer and employee in work environments, instructor and learner in education, performer and audience member in entertainment, healthcare professional and patient in medical services, operator and remote expert in industrial environments, and public official and citizen in public services.

Different roles do not imply equal functions or identical access. MCM collaboration involves coordinated contributions in which participants perform complementary activities toward a shared objective. The output or action of one participant influences the activities, decisions, or available information of other participants. Role relationships also change during a session. A participant transitions between observing, presenting, controlling, assisting, approving, or performing functions according to the progression of the collaborative activity. Clear representation of roles and role transitions supports coherent interaction among participants.

4.2.5 Real-time Reciprocal Interaction

MCM systems support reciprocal interaction in which participants exchange information and respond to one another during the shared session. Reciprocal interaction includes verbal communication, non-verbal expression, manipulation of shared objects, navigation within the virtual environment, and actions related to the shared task. Real-time interaction refers to a level of temporal responsiveness that preserves the continuity and meaning of collaborative activity. It does not imply the complete absence of transmission or processing delay. The acceptable level of responsiveness depends on the interaction type and service context. Conversation, collaborative object manipulation, remote operation, live performance, and clinical interaction present different temporal sensitivities.

Reciprocal interaction also involves mutual influence. A participant action changes the shared context, produces information for other participants, or affects the progression of the collaborative process. Other participants recognize the action and respond within the temporal conditions of the service.

4.2.6 Coherence of Shared Session State

An MCM session maintains a coherent shared state across participating users, devices, and service components. The shared session state includes participant presence, role status, object state, task progress, environmental conditions, interaction history, and other information relevant to the collaborative activity.

State coherence does not require every participant device to render the virtual environment in an identical manner. It requires consistent interpretation of the meaning and effect of shared actions and objects. For example, when one participant moves, modifies, assigns, approves, or removes a shared object, other participants receive a corresponding representation of that change appropriate to their roles and interfaces. Loss of state coherence results in different understandings of the same collaborative situation. Such inconsistency disrupts coordination, reduces trust in the shared environment, and affects the validity of collaborative outcomes.

4.2.7 Participant Presence and Mutual Awareness

MCM services provide participants with awareness of the presence, identity, role, and activity of other participants. Mutual awareness enables participants to interpret who is present, who is speaking or acting, where attention is directed, and how individual actions relate to the collaborative process. Participant presence is represented through avatars, video representations, digital humans, spatial indicators, cursors, status information, or other forms of digital representation. The form and fidelity of representation differ according to the service domain, media configuration, access device, and interaction objective.

Mutual awareness extends beyond the visual representation of participants. It includes awareness of participant availability, location, focus, current activity, communication status, and relationship to shared objects or tasks. This awareness supports coordination and reduces ambiguity during multilateral interaction. Non-verbal information, including gesture, posture, gaze direction, facial expression, and spatial orientation, contributes to mutual awareness in services where such information carries collaborative meaning. The significance of each form of non-verbal information differs across domains and use cases.

4.2.8 Continuity of Collaborative Participation

MCM systems preserve the continuity of collaborative participation throughout the lifecycle of a session. Continuity includes the association of each participant with an identity, role, permission set, interaction state, and contribution to the shared activity. Participants enter, leave, reconnect to, or transition between access environments during an MCM session. The collaborative context retains relevant information concerning participant roles, shared objects, task progress, and previous actions throughout these transitions. Continuity also applies to collaborative outcomes that remain available after the real-time session. Records, jointly created content, decisions, annotations, digital assets, and task results form part of the service context where persistence supports subsequent activities.

The scope and duration of continuity differ across service domains. A live entertainment event emphasizes continuity during the active session, while education, industrial design, healthcare, and public administration often involve persistent records and collaborative processes extending across multiple sessions.

4.3 Representative MCM Service Domains

MCM services appear across different social, economic, institutional, and industrial contexts. For the purposes of this document, service domains are distinguished according to the principal collaborative objective, the operational context of the activity, the roles and relationships of participants, and the type of shared outcome produced through the session. The domain classification focuses on the purpose of the service rather than on the device, platform, media configuration, or enabling technology used for implementation. The same technical environment supports services in different domains, while services within one domain use different technical configurations.

The domains in this subclause are representative rather than exhaustive. A service involving more than one operational context is treated as a cross-domain MCM service. Its primary domain corresponds to the principal collaborative objective, while additional domains describe complementary activities or service functions. This approach preserves a consistent basis for the domain-oriented requirements without restricting emerging MCM services to a fixed industry structure.

This document identifies the following representative domains:

• professional work and organizational collaboration;
• education and training;
• healthcare and care services;
• industrial engineering and operations;
• commerce and customer services;
• public and civic services; and
• entertainment, culture, and creative participation.

4.3.1 Professional Work and Organizational Collaboration

The professional work and organizational collaboration domain covers MCM services that support coordinated activities among participants engaged in professional, administrative, research, or organizational work. The principal objective is the production of a shared work result, decision, plan, design, or organizational action.

Representative activities include virtual meetings, collaborative planning, document and content development, brainstorming, design discussion, research collaboration, professional consultation, project coordination, onboarding, and distributed teamwork. Participants include employees, managers, researchers, consultants, clients, external partners, and AI agents performing facilitation or assistance functions.

The shared virtual context contains work-related information, common resources, task status, participant roles, and jointly produced outputs. The distinction from conventional communication services lies in the dependence of the service outcome on coordinated work within the shared context rather than on communication alone.

4.3.2 Education and Training

The education and training domain covers MCM services that support instruction, collaborative learning, practice, assessment, and skill development. The principal objective is the acquisition, application, or evaluation of knowledge and competence through interaction among instructors, learners, peers, assessors, and supporting agents.

Representative activities include virtual classrooms, collaborative laboratories, simulation-based training, procedural rehearsal, technical instruction, group problem-solving, mentoring, role-playing, and guided practice. The shared virtual context provides learning resources, simulated objects or environments, task progress, demonstrations, and feedback.

This domain includes formal education, vocational training, professional development, and safety or operational training. Services that reproduce a workplace or industrial process for learning purposes remain within this domain when learning and competence development represent the principal objective.

4.3.3 Healthcare and Care Services

The healthcare and care services domain covers MCM services that support clinical, therapeutic, rehabilitative, preventive, and care-related collaboration. The principal objective is the assessment, treatment, support, coordination, or improvement of an individual or group health condition.

Representative activities include multidisciplinary consultation, remote clinical assessment, collaborative treatment planning, rehabilitation, group therapy, clinical case review, patient education, caregiver coordination, and medical simulation associated with care delivery. Participants include healthcare professionals, patients, caregivers, technicians, specialists, and AI-based support agents.

The shared virtual context contains health-related information, participant observations, treatment or care activities, virtual representations, and records of collaborative decisions. Differentiated professional authority, restricted information access, participant consent, and continuity across related sessions form central aspects of this domain.

4.3.4 Industrial Engineering and Operations

The industrial engineering and operations domain covers MCM services associated with the design, production, operation, inspection, maintenance, and lifecycle management of products, facilities, equipment, and technical systems. The principal objective is the coordinated execution or improvement of an engineering or operational process.

Representative activities include collaborative design review, virtual prototyping, factory and facility planning, remote expert assistance, equipment maintenance, process simulation, quality inspection, operational coordination, and interaction with digital twins. Participants include engineers, designers, operators, technicians, inspectors, managers, suppliers, and AI-based operational agents.

The shared virtual context often represents physical assets, operational conditions, technical data, and task states. Relationships between virtual actions and physical processes distinguish this domain from general professional collaboration. Industrial training remains classified under education and training when learning represents the principal service objective.

4.3.5 Commerce and Customer Services

The commerce and customer services domain covers MCM services that support commercial consultation, product or service exploration, configuration, evaluation, negotiation, and transaction-related decision-making. The principal objective is the collaborative exchange of commercial information or the completion of a customer-oriented service process.

Representative activities include virtual showrooms, assisted shopping, collaborative product configuration, property or facility tours, live product demonstrations, customer consultation, group purchasing, and professional service delivery. Participants include customers, sales representatives, product specialists, service providers, advisors, designers, and AI-based customer service agents.

The shared virtual context contains product or service representations, configuration states, preferences, annotations, recommendations, and transaction-related information. This domain emphasizes the coordinated relationship between customers and service providers, or among multiple customers participating in a shared decision.

4.3.6 Public and Civic Services

The public and civic services domain covers MCM services that support public administration, civic participation, community consultation, institutional coordination, and public service delivery. The principal objective is the execution of a public function or the participation of stakeholders in a civic or administrative process.

Representative activities include virtual public hearings, participatory planning, administrative consultation, emergency response coordination, inter-agency collaboration, public education, community engagement, and review of public proposals. Participants include public officials, civil servants, citizens, community representatives, experts, emergency personnel, and AI-based public service agents.

The shared virtual context contains public information, proposals, service records, spatial or administrative data, stakeholder input, and records of collective activity. Accessibility, inclusion, representation of authority, transparency of process, and traceability of decisions form significant aspects of this domain.

4.3.7 Entertainment, Culture, and Creative Participation

The entertainment, culture, and creative participation domain covers MCM services that support shared performance, recreation, cultural engagement, artistic creation, and interaction with cultural heritage. The principal objective is the production or experience of entertainment, cultural, or creative value through coordinated participation.

Representative activities include virtual concerts, interactive performances, collaborative games, participatory storytelling, fan events, virtual exhibitions, guided museum or heritage experiences, collaborative art creation, rehearsals, and cultural workshops. Participants include performers, creators, audiences, curators, educators, researchers, moderators, and AI-driven characters, guides, or creative agents.

This domain combines entertainment and culture because both rely on participatory experience, creative expression, performance, interpretation, and audience engagement within a shared context. A service based solely on independent content consumption or adversarial activity without a collaborative objective remains outside the MCM boundary. Competitive elements remain relevant where they form part of team cooperation, collective production, or a shared participatory event.

4.4 Technical Considerations for MCM Systems

MCM systems combine multiple participants, media types, devices, platforms, and service components within a shared collaborative environment. Their technical configuration differs according to the service domain, collaborative objective, participant structure, media configuration, and operational environment.

This subclause identifies common technical consideration areas associated with MCM systems. These areas provide a general reference for understanding the technical aspects of MCM and for organizing the classifications and subsequent parts of this series. They do not define a specific implementation architecture, technology, or performance level.

4.4.1 Heterogeneous Access and Participant Representation

Participants in an MCM session access the shared environment through different types of devices and interfaces, including immersive and non-immersive systems. The form of participant representation also differs according to the service context and access environment.

Despite differences in devices and representations, participants retain a consistent relationship with the shared session, including their identity, role, activity, and interaction with shared resources. Heterogeneous access therefore represents an important consideration for maintaining a coherent collaborative experience across different participation environments.

4.4.2 Multimodal Interaction and Temporal Coordination

MCM services involve combinations of media and interaction information, including audio, video, participant representations, gestures, spatial information, shared objects, and other forms of digital content.

Collaborative interaction depends not only on the individual quality of each media element but also on the temporal relationship among them. Appropriate coordination among communication, participant actions, and changes in the shared environment supports consistent interpretation of collaborative activities.

4.4.3 Shared state and Data Consistency

Participants in an MCM session interact with shared information, objects, tasks, and environmental states. Actions performed by one participant influence the collaborative context experienced by other participants.

Consistency of shared state supports a common understanding of participant activities, object conditions, task progress, and collaborative outcomes. The representation of a shared state differs across devices or participant roles, while the meaning and effect of the state remain consistent within the collaborative context.

4.4.4 Identity, Roles, and Access

MCM services involve participants with different identities, roles, responsibilities, and levels of authority. Participant roles influence access to information, shared objects, service functions, and collaborative activities.

Identity and role information therefore form part of the technical context of an MCM session. This context also includes participant authentication, access control, role transitions, ownership relationships, and the association between participants and their activities within the shared environment. The detailed significance of these elements differs according to the service domain and collaborative objective.

4.4.5 Interoperability and Service Continuity

MCM environments involve heterogeneous platforms, devices, service components, and digital resources. Interoperability supports coherent interaction among these elements and contributes to continuity of collaborative participation across different technical environments.

In the context of MCM, interoperability extends beyond the exchange of individual data elements. It also relates to continuity of participant identity, roles, shared objects, interaction context, session information, and collaborative activities. The scope of interoperability differs according to the service configuration and forms an important reference area for the classification and gap analysis presented in subsequent clauses.

4.4.6 Distributed Processing and Service Scalability

MCM services involve processing and communication functions distributed across participant devices, network resources, edge systems, cloud environments, and service platforms. These functions include media processing, shared-state management, rendering, session management, and other operations associated with collaborative interaction.

The distribution of these functions influences responsiveness, service continuity, and the number and geographical distribution of participants supported within an MCM environment. Different service domains present different processing and scalability characteristics according to their collaborative activities and media configurations.

4.4.7 AI-assisted and Autonomous Participation

Artificial intelligence performs various functions within MCM environments. AI-based functions include assistance with communication, content generation, information processing, interaction support, and management of collaborative activities.

AI agents also participate directly in an MCM session as identifiable entities associated with specific roles or functions. The involvement of AI introduces additional considerations regarding participant representation, role assignment, interaction context, authority, and distinction between human and AI participants. The role and level of AI involvement differ according to the collaborative objective and service domain.

4.4.8 Physical-digital Integration

Some MCM services incorporate information and objects representing physical environments, assets, devices, or operational processes. Such integration connects collaborative activities in the virtual environment with states or events originating from physical environments.

Digital twins, sensing systems, connected devices, and spatial information represent examples of elements associated with physical-digital integration. Their relevance varies across domains, with stronger relationships appearing in industrial operations, healthcare, public services, and other services involving physical environments or assets. Physical-digital integration also supports cross-domain MCM scenarios in which participants interact with shared representations of real-world environments and systems.

4.4.9 Trust, Security, Privacy, and Safety

MCM services involve interactions among multiple participants and the exchange of participant, service, media, and environmental information. The significance of trust, security, privacy, and safety differs according to the service domain, participant relationship, type of information, and effect of collaborative activities.

Relevant considerations include protection of participant and service information, reliability of identity and role information, integrity of shared states and collaborative outcomes, and management of risks arising from interactions between participants, AI agents, digital resources, and physical environments. These aspects represent cross-cutting considerations across MCM service domains rather than characteristics of a particular implementation technology.

The technical consideration areas described in 4.4 provide a general reference for the classification of MCM services in Clause 5. Individual MCM services combine these areas in different ways according to their domain, media configuration, enabling technologies, and collaborative objectives. Detailed technical and service aspects are addressed in subsequent parts of this series according to their respective scopes.

5 Classification of MCM Services

5.1 Classification Framework Overview

As described in Clause 4, MCM services span a heterogeneous landscape across application domains, media types, and enabling technologies. MCM systems are applied across multiple domains, combine different media types, and depend on several technology areas. This diversity introduces challenges for standardization. A single set of requirements is not sufficient to address the range of operational contexts, media configurations, and technical architectures associated with MCM services.

The operational constraints that determine service adequacy differ substantially between MCM domains. An immersive virtual concert distributes high-fidelity audio and visual media to a large audience, where sustained media quality, rendering fidelity, and scalability of concurrent participation govern the participant experience. A remote medical consultation involves a small number of participants, where end-to-end latency, temporal precision, and fidelity of clinical detail govern the validity of the collaborative outcome. Both are MCM services under the conditions established in Clause 4, and both depend on simultaneous multilateral participation, yet the requirements that determine their adequacy are not the same. As noted in 4.2.5, live performance and clinical interaction present different temporal sensitivities. A single undifferentiated set of requirements therefore either constrains one domain beyond its operational need or leaves the other insufficiently specified. Classification by domain of application allows requirements to be expressed at the level at which these constraints actually differ.

Participants access a shared MCM session through heterogeneous terminals, including head-mounted displays, personal computers, mobile devices, and spatial computing devices. As described in 4.2.3 and 4.2.6, participants do not require identical presentation of the shared environment, but they do require consistent interpretation of shared actions, objects, and session state. Interoperability across these terminals therefore depends not only on the mapping of capabilities between devices, but also on common baseline constraints that bound the permissible variation in timing, media quality, representation of participants, and interaction semantics. Where such constraints are absent, differences between access environments propagate into the collaborative process itself and produce divergent understandings of the same session. These constraints are not uniform across MCM services; they depend on the domain, media configuration, and enabling technologies involved.

This clause introduces a classification framework to support the identification of standardization requirements and gaps. The framework organizes MCM services along three dimensions: domain of application, media type, and enabling technology. The framework serves the following purposes within this Technical Report and the IEC TR series.

Scope definition

• The classification provides a structured basis for defining the scope of MCM services and their relation to adjacent technology domains. It distinguishes MCM services from adjacent forms of digital interaction, including conventional metaverse services and non-immersive collaboration systems. The classification provides a consistent basis for determining the applicability of standardization activities across different MCM service contexts.

Analytical reference

• The classification provides a structured vocabulary and framework for describing and comparing MCM services across contexts. It supports the identification of common requirements across categories and category-specific requirements within particular domains, media types, or technologies.

Gap analysis foundation

• The classification dimensions define the basis for identifying and assessing gaps in existing international standards, as described in Clause 6. Each gap identified in 6.2 is mapped to one or more classification categories. This mapping supports systematic evaluation of limitations in current standards relative to MCM service requirements.

Requirements structuring

• The classification informs the structure of subsequent parts in this series. Part 2 (Service Requirements) follows the domain classification defined in 5.2. Part 3 (Media Requirements) follows the media classification defined in 5.3.

Classification by domain alone does not account for convergence between MCM services. Services in different domains draw on the same enabling technologies, and capabilities developed in one domain are transferable to others, as noted in 4.3.3.3. Classification by enabling technology, applied in parallel with the domain and media dimensions, identifies requirements that are common across domains and avoids the duplication that would result from specifying each domain independently. The technology dimension defined in 5.4 therefore complements the domain and media dimensions rather than subdividing them.

The classification in this clause is informative and analytical. It serves as a reference framework and does not define a normative taxonomy. Category boundaries are not fixed. MCM services span multiple domains, media types, and enabling technologies. The three dimensions are treated as complementary perspectives for analysis.

5.2 Domain-based Classification

TBD

5.3 Media-based Classification

TBD

5.4 Technology-based Classification

TBD

6 Gap Analysis

6.1 Current international Standardization Activities

TBD

6.2 Gaps in Existing Standards

TBD

6.3 Recommendations for Future Standardization

TBD

Annex A (informative) Roadmap for MCM Standard Development

TBD

Appendix Z — IEC Word Template Scaffolding (not part of the Technical Report)

Z.1 How to use this document (source: p.1–2)

This document provides you with the general structure of an IEC publication and some information about individual elements. Links to more detailed information can be found in the individual sections. Basic formatting instructions are provided for Word 2007 and later.

Typographical conventions in this template

• Content in red needs to be provided by you. Please revert the font colour to black once you have adapted it.
• Content in black is boilerplate text and cannot be modified.
• Additional explanations appear in blue with a red border; a special style (IEC INSTRUCTIONS) was created for this purpose.

To format text, use the styles from the IEC template. Most of those required are available in the IEC tools tab. Others can be accessed from Word's Styles panel – consult the user guide to the IEC template for more information. Download the user guide for in-depth instructions and brief video tutorials (in progress).

Table of contents guidance

• To update the table of contents below, click on it and press F9. Do the same for the list of figures and the list of tables.
• To create a new table of contents, delete the old one and click on Table of contents in the IEC tools tab.
• If updating the table of contents produces an error message, please use Word's built-in feature to create a table of contents (in the Reference tab, click on Table of contents and select one you like). At CDV stage, we will insert the correct table at the IEC.

Z.2 Unselected Clause 3 boilerplate variants (source: p.7–8)

Note: The document author selected Variant ① (Standard boilerplate text) for Clause 3 because the TR defines 9 internal terms and does not cite an external terms document. Variants ② and ③ were left unselected in the template.

Variant ② — Terms and definitions listed in a different document:

For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in [external document reference] apply.

ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:

• IEC Electropedia: available at https://www.electropedia.org/
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp

Variant ③ — Terms and definitions listed in a different document and in this document:

For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in [external document reference] and the following apply.

ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:

• IEC Electropedia: available at https://www.electropedia.org/
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp

Z.3 Authoring instruction (source: p.8)

To insert terms and definitions, use the Insert term form from the IEC tools tab. If the tab does not appear on your screen, make sure the IEC template is attached to your working document, and consult the user guide.