Bank of America is working with Strivr, a virtual reality startup, to introduce VR within their workplace training. The company has already used Strivr’s tech in a pilot program with around 400 employees. But now, BoA plans a wider-scale rollout scaling the VR learning platform to 45,000+ employees and bringing as many virtual reality headsets to its bank branches.

John Jordan, Bank of America executive, has sees different areas where it will be able to implement the VR technology most effectively. According to Jordan, Bank of America is working on more aggressive tasks like helping their employees show empathy to customers when dealing with sensitive matters. Jordan also states that Bank of America’s corporate learning program, “The Academy,” is mostly unmatched among other companies in the U.S., except for Walmart.

VR is a technology that lends itself to capturing undivided attention, something that is undoubtedly positive for increasing learning retention, which Jordan says was one of the central appeals for adopting the tech. For Bank of America, VR offers a platform change to reexamine some of the pitfalls of conventional corporate learning. At the same time, they acknowledge that the tech isn’t a silver bullet and that there are plenty of best practices for VR that are still unknown.

“We’re just taking it slow, to be honest. We already feel pretty great about how we’ve made investments, but we view this as a way to get better.” – Jordan.

Enterprise virtual reality startups have seen fluctuating levels of success in the last couple of years as they have aimed to find customers who are willing to pay for the service and who have a broader technology vision. Strivr has raised $51+ million in fundings, including a $30 million Series B funding in 2020. According to Derek Belch, CEO of Strivr, the company has major plans and is looking to raise more funding to develop its software toolsets to help virtual reality content creation.

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