With millions of people working from home due to the pandemic, businesses are turning to virtual reality to collaborate and communicate.

After languishing for years as primarily a gaming accessory, VR is now in the spotlight for work. Sales of virtual reality software and hardware are expected to soar. The recently announced Oculus Quest 2 and other headsets from Facebook are making the technology more accessible than ever.

“Companies are trying to find another way to connect with their customers because they can’t get to them in person,” Steven King, a professor at the University of North Carolina who studies virtual reality, said in a phone interview. “Now, because of COVID, VR is the way for some of them to do that. So for some companies, it’s a matter of sending a headset to a customer and giving them the experience, from a collaboration perspective. For others, it gives you more opportunity to work together creatively as a small team than a flat, two-dimensional experience.”

If VR is going to become a real office tool, it needs to be able to do more than just play games. Facebook recently announced that the Oculus 2 VR headset will support an application called Infinite Office that lets people work in a virtual office. Other features include virtual meetings and the ability to switch between a full VR mode and a hybrid mode that merges the virtual world with the real environment. Logitech is working together to provide a real, full-size keyboard that will work in the virtual space.