XR Technology for Small Businesses

Our Opportunity  

While small businesses have typically not been the main audience for extended reality (XR) developers, we anticipate increased interest in the coming years, creating a more viable marketplace. After all, small businesses represent a large share of the U.S. workforce, with over 60 million employees who could be trained. This, combined with community education and growing interest in XR, allows for a flourishing ecosystem where small businesses use the latest technological developments to achieve desired outcomes for themselves and their communities and provide quality jobs.   

As critical players in the U.S. economy, small businesses, employees, and the community must have access to XR technology and a seat at the table to influence its development and use.  

About the Playbook 

We’re seeing large businesses successfully implement XR technologies to train their employees. To ensure access to these technologies is truly equitable, small businesses must also be able to use them and inform their creation.  

JFF’s playbook is intended to be a resource for small business owners, policymakers, small business service providers, and others in the small business community who are interested in how XR technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can support business goals, help train employees, and empower communities.  

In this playbook, we share our key learnings from recent JFF XR pilots and offer recommendations for small businesses and their ecosystems to shape and benefit from XR. Though small businesses provide the majority of jobs in the U.S. economy, their employees often do not receive the benefits of emerging technologies, whether for training or for making their day-to-day jobs more efficient and effective.