POWER PLAYERS: These 11 companies are leading the way workers use VR - and shaping the office of the future

• Companies are turning to advanced technology like virtual reality to help them navigate a quickly changing workplace.
• Business Insider talked with major power players like Fidelity, UPS, and Boeing to see what kind of investments they're making in the platform, and what results they're seeing so far.
• The technology has implications for internal operations, including worker training and remote assistance - but it can also help teach empathy by letting employees see what it's like to be someone else.
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The modern workplace is changing, and companies across industries are turning to a platform once dismissed as a novelty concept to help them navigate that transition: virtual reality.

Business Insider reached out to some of the leading companies in this movement to pinpoint why they're investing in this technology, the results they're seeing with their employees, and what their product looks like for the user. They told us that some of their key adoption areas are employee training and cross-team collaborations - though surprisingly, they're also using the tech to teach empathy.

Still, iconic headsets aren't just popping up in one specific sector. Financial-service companies are using it to teach recruits what a bustling call center would look like. Car manufacturers tinker with it to help engineers research and test new prototypes. Even popular hotel chains are launching VR programs to show job candidates how the world of hospitality operates.

The way these companies are using the technology speaks to the potential applications in every workplace - and their innovations might show up in your office someday.

Because these companies are successfully moving the platform from the pages of sci-fi novels to the real world, we've named them our power players of VR.