Adoption is one of the biggest challenges for enterprise L&D teams. Asking busy employees to step away from their desks for training they don’t yet see the value of is a big ask, especially when they have targets to hit. When we asked the enterprise L&D community what they wanted to hear about, training adoption was by far the most common answer.
So we spoke to Kristina Scherb at Bayer, one of the world’s leading healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, about how Bayer rolled out AI roleplay training for workplace communication across its global workforce.
The results speak for themselves. Bayer employees gave the programme a Net Promoter Score of 81.6 and an average feedback score of 9 out of 10. What started as a pilot on intercultural communication spread to procurement negotiations and internal interview practice, as more teams asked to take part.
There was no magic button. Bayer relied on a deliberate process that made the training obviously relevant and easy to do. Here are the seven lessons that stood out, plus a checklist to apply them to your own rollout. For the full story, read the Bayer case study or watch the webinar replay.
1. Build relevance with the learners, not for them
We often talk about “convincing” employees to take part. Kristina started somewhere else: creating relevance and value for everyone involved.
Bayer had identified intercultural communication between global teams as a training need, following a wave of new hires from around the world. Rather than mandating workshops, Kristina worked with those teams through self-assessment surveys and collaborative workshops, where she “brought everyone together to discuss as a team what kind of situations were challenging for employees and how [they] can overcome them”.
2. Base every scenario on a real situation
The AI roleplays Bayer built with VirtualSpeech weren’t generic. Each one was based on a real communication challenge that had caused friction in the past. Because employees had helped identify those situations, the training felt targeted and relevant from day one, which drove buy-in and adoption.s that had caused friction in the past. They weren’t generic – they were specific and tailored to the employees’ exact needs.
3. Make it fit between meetings
Kristina named three main barriers to adoption: fully booked calendars, hardware and software logistics, and employee willingness.
For busy calendars, Bayer replaced long communication workshops with AI roleplays that take 5 to 10 minutes. As Kristina put it, this flexibility “is an important factor for scalability because it gives employees the possibility to use the tool for even just a couple of minutes. They don’t need a full hour blocked out in their calendar.” Some employees started using the roleplays to prepare for real meetings, or to debrief afterwards.
4. Don’t let hardware hold you back
Kristina first looked at rolling out VR headsets to globally distributed teams. She soon found that while VR was impressively immersive, the browser-based version was just as effective for training, with no extra hardware. That made it possible for remote employees to practise whenever and wherever they wanted.
5. Turn early users into champions
To build willingness, Bayer ran launch events and town halls where employees could try the AI roleplays in their most immersive form, in VR headsets provided by the company, before practising at their desks in their own time. Many became internal advocates who encouraged colleagues to try it.
6. Give people a safe space to practise
Roleplaying with a colleague, and getting feedback from them, can feel awkward or intimidating. Practising with a non-judgemental AI avatar removes that. Kristina said employees are “given a very safe space to practice. It’s just for you and the avatar, and you can go there as often as you wish and can practice as often as you like, for as long as you like.”
AI didn’t replace Bayer’s other training. It sat inside a blended approach alongside workshops and other initiatives, which also made the workshops Bayer still ran more effective. headset set-up time, it becomes really easy for employees to jump in and out of the AI roleplays whenever, wherever they want.
7. Start with high-value teams, then expand
Bayer didn’t launch across the whole organisation at once. It started with the teams working across cultures the most, fixed problems as they arose, then expanded to other global teams. Use cases grew too: negotiation practice for procurement, and interview practice for employees moving roles internally.
Kristina’s team “received more and more demand to create AI roleplays for other parts of the organization, because their potential is enormous”. A measured, phased rollout let Bayer upskill a large number of employees successfully, rather than trying to do everything at once.
Apply Bayer’s playbook: a checklist for L&D teams
- Measure feedback and usage, fix blockers, then expand to the next team
- Pick one high-value need and one team to start with
- Run a short survey or workshop to collect the real situations people find hard
- Build scenarios from those situations, not generic examples
- Make practice browser-based, in 5 to 10 minute sessions
- Use VR at launch events to create excitement and champions
- Position the practice as a safe space, separate from performance reviews
- Blend it with existing workshops rather than replacing them
Frequently asked questions
How did Bayer get employees to adopt AI training?
By making it relevant and easy: scenarios were built from real situations raised by employees, practice took 5 to 10 minutes in a browser, and launch events created internal champions.
What did Bayer use AI roleplays for?
First, intercultural communication between global teams; then negotiation training for procurement and interview practice for employees changing roles internally.
What results did Bayer see?
An 81.6 Net Promoter Score and an average feedback score of 9 out of 10 from employees, and growing demand from other parts of the organisation.
Do you need VR headsets for AI roleplay training?
No. Bayer found the browser-based version just as effective for training, and used VR mainly at launch events.
Learn more
- Read the full Bayer case study
- Watch the webinar replay with Kristina Scherb
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