--- title: "Google VR DEI training: how four scenarios were built" description: "Four VR scenarios built from real incidents at Google, co-designed with its DEI team and PTR's Leonie Sanderson. What was built, how it ran, and what came back." canonical: https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/google-vr-dei-training --- [Our Work](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work) / [Case Studies](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies) # Google: VR DEI training Four VR scenarios built from real incidents at Google, co-designed with its DEI team, and written up in a peer-reviewed CHI paper. [Download the Google research paper PDF](https://peopletechrevolution.com/uploads/docs/people-tech-revolution-google-vr-inclusion-training-chi-2024.pdf) A facilitator beside a participant in the office. ## Co-designed with Google's own people Google's DEI team co-designed a VR training experience on diversity, equity and inclusion with PTR. Leonie Sanderson led the work. It appears in a [peer-reviewed paper](https://peopletechrevolution.com/uploads/docs/people-tech-revolution-google-vr-inclusion-training-chi-2024.pdf) co-authored by three Google researchers and PTR co-founder Leonie Sanderson, presented at CHI EA '24, the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in May 2024. ## What Google's DEI team wanted Empathy and self-awareness that lead to practical action, rather than training that feels passive and a long way from anyone's lived experience. A colleague, arms folded, waiting for your reply. ### Lectures and checklists were not moving anyone Most DEI training describes bias. Google wanted its people to feel what it is like to be underestimated on a call, and then to practise what a bystander can do about it. That needed the incident itself, not a slide about it. > "We could see how powerful VR is at giving people 'a-ha moments' and wanted to create training that has an impact on people's behaviours." Leonie Sanderson Co-founder, People Tech Revolution. [Startup Spotlight, Aerospace Xelerated, 2023](https://medium.com/aeroxelerated/spotlight-people-tech-revolution-62d11e4ae535) ## What PTR built Four original VR scenarios, co-designed by PTR with 13 Google employee volunteers from Google's DEI program between 2021 and 2023, each drawn from a real incident shared by Google employees. A hybrid meeting, one colleague on the screen. Three replies to choose from, at the table. Deciding whether to step in, beside a colleague. ### Two points of view, three choices Each scenario runs the same situation twice: first from the person being underestimated, then from a bystander. At the end the trainee chooses to call it out, call it in, or ignore it. The discussion stays out of the app, as a live facilitated debrief. A teammate makes his case, replies in view. Two colleagues, and the reply you give. Addressing four colleagues around a table. ## How the first cohort ran A QA phase of 7 testing sessions with 20 volunteer testers, who reported over 100 issues before the training was refined. Then, in September 2023, the first cohort. Three executives at the boardroom table. ### Senior security staff, headsets on 32 members of Google's security team senior staff were invited and 26 accepted. 23 of them used Meta Quest 2 headsets and 3 used a desktop version. The scenarios ran first; the conversation about them ran afterwards, in the room, with a facilitator. ## What the paper reports Results from two groups: the QA testers, and the first training cohort. Giving feedback to a team, headset on. 91% of the QA testers who answered the optional survey said the scenarios felt real (10 of 11) 4.7 / 5 average satisfaction among the 7 trainees who returned the post-training survey (94%) 82% average agreement that the training was useful for understanding DEI issues (4.1 / 5) 82% average agreement that it was better than Google's standard DEI training (4.1 / 5) All but one QA tester found the VR format effective at creating an empathic response. [Bursztein, Brown, Sanderson and Kelley, CHI EA '24](https://peopletechrevolution.com/uploads/docs/people-tech-revolution-google-vr-inclusion-training-chi-2024.pdf) ## What participants said Two of the responses quoted in the paper. > "Microaggressions felt more real." Training participant Quoted in the CHI 2024 paper > "Made empathy more real via experience" Training participant Quoted in the CHI 2024 paper A conversation across a table, rehearsed first. ### What the authors say it does not prove Another participant described experiencing a situation "from the perspective of a member of a historically underrepresented group." The authors describe the findings as preliminary and self-reported: a single company, a small optional-response sample, and no comparison or control group. ## The same moment in any office Google's scenarios were built from Google incidents. The underestimated colleague on a call, the comment in a standup, the meeting nobody speaks up in: every organisation has its own list, and these are the rooms PTR builds for it. A colleague across a bare table. Briefing a room that is not there yet. Two colleagues at a standup, from your desk. Want DEI training like this for your own organisation? [Open the contact form](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/google-vr-dei-training#contact) Ask our CEO Simon Lowe’s Digital Twin a question ## Sources The published paper behind each figure above, where it is indexed and where it was covered. ### [Leveraging Virtual Reality to Enhance Diversity and Inclusion Training at Google](https://peopletechrevolution.com/uploads/docs/people-tech-revolution-google-vr-inclusion-training-chi-2024.pdf) CHI EA '24, ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2024 Bursztein, E., Brown, B., Sanderson, L., and Kelley, P. G. DOI 10.1145/3613905.3637128; [ACM Digital Library record](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3637128). ### [Google Research publication page](https://research.google/pubs/leveraging-virtual-reality-to-enhance-diversity-and-inclusion-training-at-google/) research.google, 2024 Google's own listing of the paper, with the [CHI 2024 program entry](https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2024/program/content/150643) for the session it was presented in. ### [Inside The Leader's Mind: How VR Training Gets Below The Surface](https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaheenajanjuhajivrajeurope/2025/06/13/inside-the-leaders-mind-how-vr-training-gets-below-the-surface/) Forbes, 13 June 2025 Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj. Names Google among the organisations featured in PTR's VR-based DEI training work. 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