Just as consumer VR has finally begun to run with the generous investment of technology giants such as Facebook, it seems that big businesses representing the United States are finally beginning to find their own uses for this technology.
Bank of America announced on March 3 that it will work with Bay Area VR startup Strivr to further expand the scope of employee education using virtual reality.
The bank had already used this startup to develop a pilot business for about 400 employees, but with this large-scale deployment, learning by VR for a total of 45,000 employees. Apply the platform and supply thousands of VR headsets to each branch.
Bank of America executive John Jordan says he seems to have a lot of ideas on how to use VR effectively, but he says he’ll give it a try at first. The bank has already developed a variety of VR lessons, including notarization services and fraud detection.
In addition, according to Jordan, the bank is working to develop teaching materials related to advanced customer service skills, such as employees expressing sympathy for customers who have emotional problems such as the death of relatives.
According to Jordan, the coverage of the bank’s employee education program, The Academy, is quite different from that of employee education at other large companies in the United States. A close thing is that it will be training for Wal-Mart employees who are already using VR in earnest.
Strivr signed to the giant retailer in 2017 and is still the company’s largest customer. VR education is currently being rolled out at 200 educational centers, the Walmart Academy, and at all Walmart stores.
Virtual reality is also suitable for relatively long hours of education and training because it has the advantage of not compromising the user’s attention. That’s also the main motivation for the bank to adopt VR, according to Jordan.
At Bank of America, VR has forced a transformation of the employee education platform, revealing unnoticed flaws in traditional employee education. At the same time, the bank is aware that technology is not a silver bullet, and that most of VR’s best practices are still unknown.
“I want to avoid the hassle. The investment I’ve made so far is considerable, but it’s still just a stepping stone to make something better in the future,” Jordan said.
Enterprise VR startups have been volatile over the last few years. The paying customers they aim for are tolerant of technology constraints while at the same time demanding a broader vision.
Strivr has raised $51 million so far, of which $30 million will be Series B in 2020, when the company has decided to become a leader in employee education. That’s right. CEO Derek Belch said the company has some big plans and would like to raise more money to simplify the production of VR content for partners with future software toolsets.