Every year, I try to step back and look at Virti the way our customers do – not the way we pitch it, not the way we hope it works, but the way it actually shows up in their day-to-day reality.
This year, two sources stood out. One was familiar: customer feedback on G2, where Virti currently holds a 4.8/5 rating. The other caught me more off guard, in the best possible way: a note from the Educational Testing Service (ETS). For an organization founded in 1947 – and one that has shaped global assessment standards for decades – to independently surface Virti as a “best-in-class platform” for role-play and simulation is both validating and humbling.
Taken together, these perspectives offer a clear picture of what we’re doing well, where we still fall short, and what we need to focus on in 2026.
What Virti does right
The most consistent message from customers is that Virti removes friction from something that’s historically been hard to do well: practice.
People tell us they can build scenarios quickly, without code, without a long onboarding process, and without needing a technical team standing by. That matters more than it might sound. Training only works if it actually happens, and “effortless content creation” isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s the difference between an idea and execution.
Another theme we hear often is psychological safety. Users describe Virti as a place where learners can fail, reflect, and try again – privately. That’s especially important for communication-heavy skills, whether you’re a nurse navigating a difficult patient conversation, a teacher managing classroom dynamics, or a manager giving feedback. AI doesn’t replace human coaching, but it does allow people to practice honestly before the stakes are real.
Accessibility is the third pillar we don’t take lightly. Virti works on phones, laptops, and headsets. Many of our customers never touch VR at all – and that’s fine. The goal was never to force hardware adoption; it was to make high-quality role-play available anywhere, at scale.
Finally, and this is one I’m personally proud of, our customer support team shows up. Over and over again, customers mention the people behind the platform. Technology gets the headlines, but relationships are what keep programs alive.
Where We’ve Fallen Short
None of this means we’ve “arrived.” If anything, the feedback makes our gaps clearer.
Some users find our voices too robotic. Others point out limited accent diversity or an unconscious American bias. A few are candid about avatars drifting into uncanny territory if visual fidelity slips. They’re right. Immersion breaks quickly when realism doesn’t hold, and we haven’t always met our own bar here.
We also hear – fairly – that our platform still carries the fingerprints of our healthcare origins. That depth has been an advantage, but it’s also skewed our default environments and templates. Corporate, education, and public-sector users want more out-of-the-box relevance without having to build everything from scratch.
There are more practical critiques too: occasional latency issues, a steeper learning curve once you move beyond the basics, integrations that take longer than they should, and pricing that can be tough for smaller organizations. None of these are existential problems – but taken together, they’re signals we can’t ignore.
Why the ETS Perspective Matters
This is where ETS comes back into the picture.
ETS isn’t chasing novelty. Their work on High-Leverage Teaching Practices spans decades of research, validation, and measurement. When they talk about translating theory into “authentic, practice-based experiences,” they’re describing exactly the problem we’re trying to solve – just with a much higher bar for rigor.
What struck me most about their note wasn’t the compliment. It was the alignment. ETS sees simulation not as a gimmick, but as a bridge between evaluation and growth. That’s where Virti needs to lean in: not just creating practice environments, but generating data that’s credible, defensible, and genuinely useful.
Virti’s Focus for 2026
So here’s where we’re putting our energy this year:
- More human AI: Better voices, broader accents, and emotionally responsive virtual humans that feel less like software and more like real counterparts.
- Horizontal expansion: A significantly expanded library of environments and scenarios for education, corporate, and government use – not just healthcare.
- Global readiness: Deeper localization, stronger performance in low-bandwidth settings, and fewer assumptions baked into the product.
- Faster time to impact: More templates, clearer onboarding for advanced features, and smoother integrations so programs launch faster.
We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. But we are trying to be honest about what Virti is today – and deliberate about what it needs to become.
If there’s one thing both G2 reviewers and ETS reinforce, it’s this: practice works when it’s authentic, accessible, and grounded in evidence. Our job is to keep earning the trust that comes with that responsibility.
By Kurt Kratchman, CEO of Virti