Mapping evolving immersive customer experiences (CX) and virtual engagement in the metaverse: insights from bibliometrics-topic modelling synthesis

Abstract This study maps the research landscape of immersive customer experience (CX) in the metaverse by synthesizing bibliometric analysis and topic modelling. Using 1,460 Scopus indexed journal articles (2000–2025), we examined publication trends, prolific authors, journals, and country contributions, and applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling, uncover thematic structures. Findings show 22.78% in publications, with increasing global contributions from countries like India, Malaysia, and South Korea. Seven core themes emerged: CX enhancement, brand engagement and virtual services, marketing research trends in CX, digital marketing and NFT adoption, AI-driven engagement, immersive business value creation, and consumer behaviour in virtual retail. While the field is developing, metaverse-specific CX models and measurement tools remain underdeveloped. The study advances theory by CX frameworks to immersive, co-created, and avatar-mediated experiences, and offer practical guidance for firms to adopt customer-centric strategies that leverage AI, gamification, and virtual branding. To our knowledge, this is the first work to combine bibliometric and topic modelling to chart CX research in the metaverse, highlighting current research frontiers and future research agenda.