According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2023, 68% of people say they don’t have enough uninterrupted focus time during the workday. That figure predates the era of back-to-back video calls as the default mode of remote work. The calls themselves carry some of the blame. Why they exhaust us was identified by Stanford researcher Jeremy Bailenson in 2021: sustained unnatural eye contact, self-monitoring from your own face on screen, and the cognitive overhead of parsing nonverbal cues through a compressed feed. Video calls solved remote presence. They created a new problem.
VR meetings are pitched as the fix. This post gives you an honest take — what the research actually says, where virtual reality meetings fall short, and when they’re genuinely worth the headset.
What Is a VR Meeting?
A VR meeting is a shared virtual environment where participants join as avatars, hear each other through spatial audio, and interact with collaborative tools in three-dimensional space. The key differentiator from a video call isn’t the technology — it’s the spatial model. Instead of watching a grid of faces on a flat screen, you share a room.
Spatial audio is the detail that matters most. Your voice comes from wherever your avatar stands — so a side conversation with a colleague actually sounds like one. Collaboration tools follow the same logic. Whiteboards, sticky notes, 3D file walkthroughs, and voting tools exist as objects in the room that every participant can walk up to, write on, or move.
Hardware requirement: a VR headset — Meta Quest 3, Apple Vision Pro — is what creates the immersive experience. The meeting in VR requires putting on the headset. That’s the point.
VR Meetings vs. Video Calls: A Practical Comparison
This isn’t an either/or argument. The question isn’t which is better — it’s which is better for what. A 2023 field study in GMS Journal for Medical Education quantified the difference. VR induced approximately 34% lower extraneous cognitive load than video conferencing — 2.14 vs. 3.23 on a standardized scale — with measurably higher social presence and engagement.
| Factor | Video Call | VR Meeting |
|---|---|---|
| Presence / focus | Faces on a grid; shared screen as primary collaboration surface; easy to mentally check out | Shared physical-feeling space; you are in the room; harder to drift — the GMS study recorded ~34% lower cognitive load and higher engagement vs. video |
| Collaboration tools | Screen share, chat, file links, basic whiteboard in some tools | Persistent 3D whiteboards, sticky notes, 3D file walkthroughs, spatial annotations — tools exist as objects everyone can touch |
| Fatigue | Bailenson (2021): sustained unnatural eye contact, mirror anxiety from seeing your own face, and compressed nonverbal cues all compound into measurable fatigue | GMS study: lower extraneous cognitive load; social presence closer to in-person; avatar removes mirror anxiety |
| Hardware needed | Any device with a camera | VR headset required (Meta Quest 3, Apple Vision Pro) |
| Setup time | Instant — click a link | 2–5 minutes first time (headset, avatar, audio calibration); subsequent meetings are fast |
| Best for | Daily standups, quick syncs, 1:1 check-ins, large all-hands, any meeting where the primary mode is “someone talks, others listen” | Quarterly planning, design reviews, workshops, new-hire onboarding, collaborative problem-solving where the work itself is the meeting |
For your Monday standup, keep using Zoom. For quarterly planning, design reviews, or new-hire onboarding — where you need people to actually think together — VR is worth trying. The market signals this shift. Accenture’s 2023 research found that 89% of C-suite executives say the metaverse will be important to their organization’s growth. IDC projects the AR/VR market at a 38.6% CAGR through 2029. VR conferencing and VR video conferencing aren’t a niche experiment — they’re infrastructure the enterprise is actively building.
How to Run a VR Business Meeting
Step 1: Get your headset ready
The Meta Quest 3 (~$500) is the most common enterprise entry point — standalone, no PC required, strong platform support. Charge it fully before the meeting. Then run any pending firmware updates and pair your audio.
Step 2: Choose your virtual meeting room
VR meeting platforms offer environment templates — boardrooms, open collaborative spaces, auditorium-style layouts, and custom branded environments for enterprise accounts. Match the space to the purpose. A formal product review works in a structured boardroom setup; a creative workshop calls for open space where people can spread out.
Step 3: Invite your team
Most platforms generate a join link the same way Zoom does. First-time participants need approximately five minutes to configure their avatar and audio — brief your team in advance for the first session. Your first VR meeting will feel slightly awkward. Your third one won’t.
Step 4: Use the tools
If you run a VR meeting exactly like a Zoom call — one person talks while everyone else sits there — you’ve gained nothing. Use the whiteboard, put the sticky notes up, walk your team through the 3D mockup. That shift from passive watching to active doing is where VR earns its place.
The Best VR Meeting Platforms Right Now
No single platform wins across every use case. Virtual reality conferencing has matured enough that the decision is no longer whether to adopt it, but which platform fits your team.
- raum.app — VR-native platform built specifically for professional teams. Designed around the meeting experience, not social interaction or gaming.
- Horizon Workrooms (Meta) — Deep integration with Meta Quest hardware; strong fit for large organizations already standardized on the Meta ecosystem.
- Spatial — Strong visual design; free tier available; growing enterprise adoption among creative and design teams.
- MeetInVR — Purpose-built for meetings with a solid enterprise feature set; straightforward to deploy for distributed teams.
The right platform is the one your team will actually use. Start with the one that matches your existing hardware.
See our full VR meeting platform comparison.
The Verdict
VR meetings aren’t a replacement for video calls. They’re a better tool for specific use cases — the ones where presence, focus, and active collaboration actually matter. The research supports it. So does the enterprise adoption curve.
If you’re running weekly standups, Zoom is fine. If you’re running workshops, design reviews, or remote onboarding sessions — where you need people to actually think together in the same space — give VR a real try. The difference isn’t cosmetic.
raum.app is built for exactly this — [try it with your team]
FAQs
What is a VR meeting?
A VR meeting places participants in a shared three-dimensional environment — joined as avatars, connected through spatial audio. Unlike a video call’s grid of faces, VR meeting participants share a room. Collaborative tools exist as physical objects in that room: whiteboards, sticky notes, and 3D files that everyone can interact with simultaneously.
Do you need a VR headset for a VR meeting?
Yes — the headset is what makes it a VR meeting. A Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro gives you the spatial presence, directional audio, and collaborative toolset that differentiate VR from a video call. raum.app, for example, is built headset-first — the full meeting experience is designed around the immersive environment a headset provides.
Are VR meetings better than Zoom?
For specific use cases, yes. A 2023 field study in GMS Journal for Medical Education measured approximately 34% lower extraneous cognitive load in VR vs. video conferencing, along with higher social presence and engagement. VR is a complement to video calling, not a replacement.
How do virtual reality meeting rooms work?
Platforms create persistent three-dimensional environments where participants join as avatars with spatial audio — your voice comes from wherever your avatar is standing, so conversations have natural directionality. Shared whiteboards, sticky notes, and 3D files exist as objects in the space that every participant can see and interact with simultaneously.
What’s the best VR meeting app for business?
It depends on your setup. raum.app is built VR-first for professional teams and focuses on the meeting experience specifically — not social or gaming use cases. Horizon Workrooms is the strongest option for organizations already standardized on Meta Quest hardware. Spatial offers a strong free tier and is a practical starting point for smaller teams or teams without an existing VR hardware investment.