How AR-driven Employee Engagement Initiatives are Picking Up Pace

When was the last time you read, in full, an all-staff email?

The latest global research shows that one in three employees never clicks on company emails. And of those who do, only 34% read more than half. 

Companies everywhere are grappling with one common problem: engaging their employees. 

They are competing intensely to retain top talent and provide meaningful employee experiences, yet most workplace communications are still stuck in the early 2000s, reliant on PowerPoint decks, PDF reports and all-staff emails. These formats are skimmed quickly and forgotten just as quickly.

Outside of work, digital experiences have transformed dramatically over the past decade. Social platforms have refined UX, algorithms and design to keep users engaged and immersed, and content is visual, interactive and personalised.

Why should communication at work feel any less engaging than the digital experiences people enjoy outside it?

Evolution of employee communications 

• One-dimensional communication tells employees what is happening.

For decades, internal communication was treated as broadcast.

Send the email. Publish the PDF. Upload the newsletter.

Inform people. Update people. Remind people.

It was efficient and scalable, designed to activate the language-driven part of the brain that helps people remember dates, logistics and key points. But if we are honest, it rarely changed how an employee feels about the organisation, and almost never changed their behaviour.

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• Two-dimensional communication helps employees understand what is happening.

Then came more interactive forms of communications, creating dialogue instead of simply issuing announcements. 

This was videos, town halls, live Q&As and internal social feeds. 

This significantly shifted employee communications, adding humanity and context – elements essential in communications. We could see leadership speak, hear their tone and sense their mood.

However, even then, most internal communications still fade quickly, as they live in the moment and disappear into a scroll. Employees may understand the messages, but it does not necessarily always stay with them. This is because understanding is not the same as engagement. 

• Three-dimensional communication engages employees.

We are now entering the next phase – immersive communications, a format that is interactive, emotionally resonant, and mirrors the way people actually live and communicate today, outside of work.

And it is simpler than you think. 

The technology enabling this shift is augmented reality.

How augmented reality is transforming employee engagement

Augmented reality (AR) allows organisations to layer short, interactive digital experiences onto real-world environments, using devices employees already have such as smartphones, and in time, AR glasses.

With distributed teams, hybrid offices and global workforces, companies need formats that travel across borders and time zones while still feeling personal. AR provides that balance, enabling organisations to communicate at scale without losing connection.

In practical terms, it means an office wall, a meeting room, a printed poster or even a remote workspace can become an interactive communication touchpoint. Instead of sending another email or uploading another deck, companies can place visual, immersive stories directly into the spaces where employees work. 

The result is a different experience of information – one that is participatory rather than passive, which as a result, drives employees to engage with company culture, strategy, and values in a way that is fun, memorable, and impactful.

The interactive component is key to unlocking the mental connection to the content and driving more engagement. This could be as simple as walking around an object. Simple interactivity is the optimum scenario.

Use cases of AR in employee engagement

Large organisations across sectors are already putting it into practice.

• Salesforce – onboarding and company culture 

Like many global companies, Salesforce faced a post-pandemic challenge: offices reopening, but underused. First impressions matter, and in a hybrid world, culture is harder to feel. Traditional onboarding, such as videos, slide decks, and internal portals, was no longer enough to bring the workplace to life or justify time spent in the office. 

To tackle this challenge, Salesforce introduced an AR experience throughout its Dublin Tower, with ten interactive AR points placed across the building, accessible through QR codes on mobile devices. Each unlocked short, employee-narrated stories highlighting different aspects of the building and the company’s culture, from sustainability features to the history of the tower itself.

Employees could explore in any order, at their own pace, and completing the journey unlocked an additional AR experience that could be accessed from anywhere, reinforcing connection beyond the physical office. Instead of being told what the company stood for, employees actively explored those values embedded in the space around them. 

The result was not just greater interaction with the space, but a deeper connection to culture. Following its success in Dublin, similar AR experiences have been introduced in other Salesforce offices globally. Core elements of PowerPoint-based employee onboarding have now been replaced with this experience.

• Bupa – Aligning company strategy with employees

When Bupa rolled out its “Savannah27” strategy, its challenge was aligning all employees. Launching a new corporate strategy is a defining moment, but slide decks and town halls rarely energise a workforce of 100,000 people across multiple countries.

Instead of relying on presentations alone, Bupa introduced an interactive AR experience accessible on employee devices globally. The experience opened with a personalised message from the CEO and guided employees through an immersive digital environment that visually reinforced the strategy’s themes. Interactive quizzes were embedded to test understanding, and the experience was delivered in six languages to ensure consistency across regions.

The impact was measurable. The initiative received 99% positive feedback, with average quiz scores of 80%, demonstrating strong retention of key message.

For global organisations, this AR use case demonstrates that strategy only gains traction when employees engage with it and understand how it connects to their role.

• Grant Thornton – Sustainability and workplace policies

During Earth Week, Grant Thornton Ireland set out to make environmental impact visible to employees. Policies and sustainability commitments often feel abstract when delivered as documents, so the firm introduced an AR experience in its lobby focused on the impact of single-use plastics, rather than circulating another sustainability report.

Employees who scanned the space were transported into an interactive scene where everyday waste became tangible. A discarded coffee cup triggered a visual cascade, culminating in a dramatic flood of over 100,000 plastic cups filling the lobby, a powerful illustration of how small daily habits can make a big impact. 

More than 40% of employees engaged with the experience during the week. 

The objective for Grant Thornton was not awareness alone but also a mindset shift. When sustainability is experienced rather than explained, it becomes harder to ignore, making company commitments more relatable and actionable. In areas like policy and environmental responsibility, that shift to experience can make the difference between compliance and commitment.

The future of employee engagement with AR

Employee engagement today should be immersive. Organisations that embrace immersive technologies like AR can connect people more deeply to culture, strategy and values, strengthening employee satisfaction and, ultimately, improving retention.

When immersive experiences are done well, they unlock something powerful: participation. Employees do not just receive the message, they engage, share, and contribute to it. Stories that come from employees are more powerful than messages pushed from the top down.

If we want employee to engage with communications from the company we must be inspired by the short form, visual and interactive style of content people consume outside of the workplace on Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok.

If we want employees to remember what matters, we have to move beyond telling them. We have to invite them into the story in a way they can feel. 

When culture is experienced, it does not just inform. It stays.

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