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Businesses get the clearest value from virtual reality (VR) when people need to practice a task that is hazardous, expensive, difficult to stage, or disruptive to perform in a live environment. That makes workforce training and simulation the strongest established fit. VR can also support manufacturing design and operations, customer experiences, and healthcare education—but the business case depends on whether immersion improves on a simpler alternative and whether results can be measured.
VR places a user inside a simulated environment. Augmented reality (AR) overlays digital information on the real world; extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term that includes VR, AR, and mixed reality. Several adoption figures below refer to XR or industrial-metaverse technologies, not VR alone.
Where VR has the strongest business case
VR is most useful when a 3D, embodied experience lets someone rehearse actions or inspect a space in ways that a video, desktop tool, or classroom cannot. Its repeatability can reduce the cost or risk of practice, while shared virtual models can help teams assess designs before changing physical operations.
- Strongest fit: repeatable training and simulation for risky, costly, rare, or hard-to-stage situations.
- Other practical fits: factory layout review, prototyping, digital-twin simulation, product exploration, and immersive marketing.
- Key test: whether the experience improves a defined outcome enough to justify content development, devices, deployment, and support.
Workforce training and simulation
Training is VR’s clearest business use because learners can practice actions in a controlled scenario before facing the real task. Relevant applications include industrial safety, equipment operation, onboarding, emergency response, surgery skills, and flight simulation. The OECD describes these training contexts and summarizes research on surgical training: the literature it reviews generally finds VR training advantageous or comparable to face-to-face methods, with potential economic savings and less time to train. That synthesis does not mean VR outperforms conventional training for every skill or learner. OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024
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Examples of reported training outcomes
- Walmart associates: The OECD reports that Walmart used a VR Pickup Tower module to train more than one million associates. For that task, training reportedly fell from a full day in special stores to 15 minutes, while avoiding associated travel. This is a specific case, not a general estimate of time savings from VR.
- Meta Quest business case: A July 2025 Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact study, commissioned by Meta, modeled a composite organization using interviews with six decision-makers across four organizations. For its composite, the study estimated onboarding time acceleration of 25% and task-worker training-time reductions of up to 75% (24 hours per user annually). It also estimated a three-year, risk-adjusted 219% ROI and $4.2 million net present value (NPV). These are modeled estimates tied to the study’s assumptions and composite—not observed or guaranteed results for another organization. Forrester Consulting’s Meta Quest study
The OECD also recounts Walmart CEO Doug McMillon’s comment that associates who had practiced an active-shooter response scenario in VR meant “lives were saved and seconds were gained”. This is an attributed comment about the scenario, not a separately verified estimate of causal impact. OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024
Manufacturing, design, and operations
Manufacturers can use VR to review proposed production layouts, inspect prototypes at full scale, rehearse work procedures, and train against a digital twin without interrupting a live factory. These uses are most compelling when identifying a design or workflow problem virtually is cheaper or safer than discovering it during installation or production. Microsoft’s enterprise use-case guide lists prototyping and manufacturing scenarios, including examining production lines for hazards; the OECD discusses digital twins as a way to model complex systems and train without disrupting continuous factory operations. Microsoft’s guide is an archived or prior guide and is useful for scenario categories, not evidence of current product availability. Microsoft Learn: Enterprise use cases with Windows Mixed Reality OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024
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What adoption surveys do—and do not—show
Manufacturing adoption figures often cover a broader technology category than VR:
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| Deloitte survey of manufacturing executives on industrial-metaverse use cases | 92% said their company was experimenting with or implementing at least one metaverse-related use case, averaging more than six. Production was the most common ecosystem; process simulation and real-time monitoring/digital twins led use cases, with immersive training third. | This is not a VR adoption rate; the industrial metaverse includes technologies beyond VR. Deloitte, “Exploring the industrial metaverse” |
| HTC VIVE’s March 2024 survey of 400 U.S. professionals across ten industries | 50% of manufacturers surveyed said they used XR in areas including layout and planning, quality control, prototyping, inventory, assembly, or training. Among XR-using manufacturers, 70% had implemented training and 67% had integrated XR to improve efficiency. | These are vendor-published survey findings about surveyed respondents and XR, not VR alone or all manufacturers. HTC VIVE, March 5, 2024 survey release |
The figures indicate interest in immersive and related industrial technologies, but they do not establish that a particular factory will achieve a specific productivity, safety, or cost result from VR.
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Retail, marketing, and customer experience
Retailers and brands can offer immersive product exploration, virtual shopping environments, and VR advertising or sales support. These experiences may help customers understand products or spaces, but a virtual storefront is not automatically a sound investment: the experience must fit the product, audience, and buying journey.
PwC UK identifies consumer engagement—which includes retail processes, consumer experiences, and sales support—as the largest category in its mapped UK XR examples, at 37.9%. Learning and development was second, at 21.7%. These percentages describe categories in PwC’s UK XR data, not the share of businesses worldwide using VR and not a measured sales lift. PwC UK: “The business benefits of XR are real and all around us”
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Healthcare and professional services
Healthcare has distinct VR contexts: employee education and clinical or therapeutic applications. The evidence summarized by the OECD supports training examples such as surgical practice and anatomy learning. That is different from demonstrating that VR is an appropriate or effective treatment for a particular patient. The sources cited here do not establish a universal clinical treatment recommendation, so organizations considering patient-care applications need evidence specific to the intended use and population.
PwC UK’s mapped XR examples include healthcare as 7.68% of leading UK industries; engineering and manufacturing accounted for 24.13%, retail and consumer 10.90%, and professional services 10.65%. These are UK XR figures, not VR-only adoption rates or global industry shares. PwC UK: “The business benefits of XR are real and all around us”
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How to decide whether a VR use case is worth adopting
Start with the job to be done, not the headset. Compare VR with the current training or operating method and with less immersive options. PwC advises using XR when circumstances call for it rather than replacing every existing process. PwC UK
- Define the outcome. Choose a measure such as task competency, time to proficiency, error rate, safety performance, travel avoided, or production downtime.
- Test whether immersion matters. Ask whether 3D presence and embodied practice add value beyond video, desktop simulation, classroom instruction, or supervised practice.
- Check practice constraints. VR is a better candidate when real practice is dangerous, costly, rare, or disruptive—and when the simulated task is realistic enough to transfer to work.
- Estimate the content burden. Account for modeling, scenario development, localization, revisions, and updates as processes or equipment change.
- Plan deployment at the intended scale. Include device management, software compatibility, hygiene, user support, and logistics across sites and shifts.
- Set privacy and safety rules. Identify what body-tracking or other user data the system collects, who can access it, how long it is retained, and how users will stay comfortable and physically safe.
- Run a measured pilot. Compare results with a suitable baseline and include the full operating costs. Expand only if the measured benefit justifies those costs.
Risks and limits to account for
Privacy and physical comfort
VR systems can collect detailed information from tracking body movements. The OECD flags privacy risks, simulator sickness, and physical safety concerns. Organizations should understand data collection and retention, restrict access appropriately, and account for users’ surroundings and comfort. OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024
Evidence is specific to the study and technology category
Reported outcomes and adoption rates have different scopes: the Walmart figure describes one training module; the Forrester results are a Meta-commissioned composite model; Deloitte’s findings concern the industrial metaverse; HTC VIVE’s survey concerns XR among respondents; and PwC’s figures describe UK XR examples. None should be treated as a universal forecast for a VR project.
Hardware is only one part of implementation
A headset by itself does not create a business outcome. A deployment also needs suitable software and content, device management, support, and a plan for maintaining the experience. The evidence here does not identify one best headset for every company; choose hardware only after confirming that the intended workflow and software are supported.
How common is VR in business?
One historical market reference from the OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024, citing Ubrani (2023), estimates that approximately 9 million VR headsets were sold worldwide in 2022. The same passage estimates 260,000 AR headsets sold that year and attributes 80% of VR headset sales to Meta, 10% to ByteDance, and 10% to other firms. These are historical consumer and market figures, not current market shares or evidence of enterprise adoption. OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024
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