VR soft skills training lets people practise conversations, presentations and interviews in a realistic setting, with an AI or scripted character responding to what they say. It’s used for leadership, customer service, sales, interviews and public speaking: skills that are hard to learn from a slide deck and risky to practise for the first time on real colleagues or customers.
Just like any other skill, practice makes perfect and immersive learning is opening up new opportunities to practice soft skills and develop confidence and skills in a short period of time.
Immersive learning provides an easily accessible opportunity to practice communication skills on-demand. Here’s our pick of 5 of the best uses of VR for soft skills training.
Talespin (now part of Cornerstone): leadership training
Talespin, acquired by Cornerstone OnDemand in 2024, built VR leadership modules in which managers practised conversations with virtual employees. Its “Leading Through Uncertainty” series, launched during the pandemic, helped managers practise communicating clearly and supporting their teams through disruption.
Talespin’s technology is now part of Cornerstone’s learning platform.
Learn more about this use case
Strivr and Walmart: customer service training
Walmart worked with Strivr from 2017 to bring VR training into its 200 Academies, then expanded it to nearly 4,700 US stores. In the pilot, associates who trained in VR reported 30% higher satisfaction, scored higher on tests 70% of the time, and retained 10–15% more than with traditional training.
The pilot program showcased significant benefits, with associates using VR reporting a 30% higher employee satisfaction, scoring higher on tests 70% of the time, and achieving a 10 to 15% higher rate of knowledge retention compared to traditional training methods.
The impact of VR training is evident in various aspects. For example, prior to VR implementation, training for pickup tower launch coaches involved day-long sessions at each new location.
However, with VR, training time has been reduced to approximately 15 minutes, and the need for launch coaches to travel to store sites has been eliminated. This reduction in training time and enhanced efficiency demonstrates the effectiveness of VR in streamlining training processes.
Immersive Learning through VR prepares employees for both day-to-day tasks and high-pressure situations, fostering critical customer service skills such as empathy, inclusion, and diversity.
Store-level productivity is strong, due in part to the training we are providing our associates. As the nature of work continues to change, we’re innovating to empower associates to better serve customers as they develop new skills, thriving in their jobs and growing their careers.
– Doug McMillon, then CEO, Walmart
Learn more about this use case
VirtualSpeech: presentation skills
Severn Trent, one of Britain’s largest water companies, added VR practice to its presentation training. Employees rehearse in virtual meeting rooms and TEDx-style theatres and get live feedback on eye contact, pace and filler words, then use the same headsets for interview and career development practice.
The programme has saved more than 120 hours of training time, employees have spent more than 11,000 minutes in VR, and courses filled up so quickly that extra sessions were added.
Learn more about this use case
Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce (tackling bias)
The Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce built three AI roleplays in which women founders practise pitching to an angel investor, a lender and a venture capitalist who show realistic levels of unconscious gender bias. Learners rehearse recognising and responding to bias in a safe setting before real funding conversations.
The first course ran with 40 founders in January 2026. Read the CanWCC case study.
Mursion: leadership training with Coca-Cola
This final example comes from the global brand Coca-Cola and VR partner, Mursion. This project was designed to deliver leadership training and practice to 1,300 managers on Coca-Cola’s HIPO leadership programme.
The primary aim was to supplement and advance the traditional role-play scenarios used to enhance leadership skills.
One of the reasons why VR was the ideal training method for this is that it could provide consistent and measurable scenarios for all managers to use, regardless of their geographic location.
It also provided an authentic way to engage in high-stake conversations, with both the company and the learner gaining invaluable feedback on their performance and improvement markers.
As with all the examples outlined, the success of the VR leadership training platform was tangible. Coca-Cola reported that it was able to triple learning engagement over a nine-month period, and that skill upturn was self-paced and long-lasting.
Learn more about this use case
Benefits of VR for soft skills training
- Practice without real-world risk. People can make mistakes in a difficult conversation or a pitch without damaging a relationship or a deal.
- Faster and more focused learning. In PwC’s 2020 study, VR learners trained up to 4 times faster than classroom learners and were up to 4 times more focused than e-learners.
- More confidence to apply what they learn. The same study found VR learners were up to 275% more confident to act on what they learned.
- Cost-effective at scale. VR reached cost parity with classroom training at 375 learners in PwC’s study.
- Training on demand. People practise when they need to, such as the day before an interview or a performance review, rather than waiting for a scheduled workshop.
For the full list, with limitations and a rollout plan, see our guide to VR training benefits and examples.
Types of VR soft skills training
| Type | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 360° video | Learners watch a filmed scenario and choose responses | Awareness, simple branching decisions |
| Scripted simulation | A computer-generated scene with set dialogue options | Consistent compliance or safety scenarios |
| AI roleplay in VR | Learners speak freely with an AI character that responds and scores them | Conversations, interviews, feedback, sales |
| VR presentation practice | Learners present to a virtual audience and get feedback on delivery | Public speaking, pitches, Q&A |
What people practise on shared VR headsets
We looked at 500+ shared headset logins in VR labs at 70 organisations, which ran 15,000+ AI roleplay sessions in 2026.
| What people practised | Share of sessions |
|---|---|
| Job interviews | 30% |
| Leadership and difficult conversations | 11% |
| Sales, pitching and negotiation | 11% |
| Open conversation practice | 7% |
| Organisations’ own scenarios and other topics | 41% |
- Most VR labs are in education. 78% of sessions were at universities and colleges.
- Language is no barrier. 48% of sessions were in a language other than English.
- Organisations build their own. Four in ten sessions used scenarios written by the organisation, using custom roleplays.
Frequently asked questions
What soft skills can you train in VR? Communication, public speaking, leadership, feedback, difficult conversations, customer service, sales, negotiation and job interviews are the most common.
Is VR soft skills training effective? In PwC’s 2020 study, VR learners trained faster, felt more confident to apply what they learned and were more focused than classroom or e-learning groups. Results depend on practice and feedback, not the headset alone.
Do you need a VR headset for soft skills training? No. Most platforms, including VirtualSpeech, also run in a browser, so people can practise without a headset and use VR when one is available.
