XR2Learn: Policy recommendations for immersive education and human-centric AI

XR2Learn: Policy recommendations for immersive education and human-centric AI Prof. Ioannis Chatzigiannakis emphasises the potential of Extended Reality (XR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create immersive educational environments and calls for structural changes to better integrate these technologies in education for workforce upskilling and reskilling. Europe faces a compounding skills crisis. The twin digital and green transitions are reshaping labour markets faster than traditional education and training can respond. Extended Reality (XR) – an umbrella term for immersive technologies including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) that merge physical and digital worlds – along with the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), creates intelligent and human-centric immersive XR environments that are increasingly recognised as a strategic frontier for education and industrial competitiveness. Yet the educational sector lags far behind other domains in XR adoption. The barrier is structural: high-quality XR learning applications have historically demanded specialist engineers and multi-year development cycles, placing immersive EdTech firmly within large enterprises and excluding the SMEs, VET providers, and instructional designers who constitute the majority of Europe’s training ecosystem.