An overview of national strategies and policies for immersive technologies

1. Trends in policymaking on immersive technologies

1.1.  Policymaking in the context of immersive technologies

Immersive technologies, which add a digital layer to the real world or replace it fully with virtual content, continue to develop and diffuse, introducing opportunities and challenges for societies and economies. Among the emerging technologies within this set are augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), virtual reality (VR), digital twins, virtual worlds, and more broadly, spatial computing and extended reality (XR).

This report aims to provide a broad perspective on relevant national strategies and policies adopted thus far to help policymakers take stock of and assess policy options for advancing the responsible development and application of these technologies. Only policies that have either exclusively targeted immersive technologies or featured them explicitly within their scope are considered in this analysis.

To date, policymaking globally for immersive technologies has received limited attention. As detailed in the OECD’s Immersive Technologies Policy Primer (OECD, 2025[1]), adoption of these technologies may merit a policy response. Among the potential benefits are enhanced service delivery and access relating to healthcare, education and skills development, manufacturing and maintenance, civic engagement and empowerment, culture and tourism. Economic benefits are likely to flow from the development of immersive technology ecosystems, while the deployment of these technologies may expand workforce opportunities and introduce new dynamism into marketing and retail. The paper also details a wide range of policy considerations relating to the use of immersive technologies, including around issues such as privacy, data governance and compliance, online safety and digital security, manipulated and misleading content, access, skills gaps, digital literacy, interoperability and international co-operation.

1.1.1. Methodology

To provide an overview of global policymaking on these technologies, this report uses a baseline set of policies from the OECD’s 2021 survey of 46 national governments on all digital policymaking as contained within Assessing national digital strategies and their governance, together with the updated dataset from a second survey round administered in 2023 for the OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024 (OECD, 2025[2]). Responses to the survey include government officials’ direct descriptions of policies. The joint OECD and European Commission STIP Compass tool is also cross-referenced for additional policy details (OECD and European Commission, 2025[3]). To supplement these survey-based datasets and introduce newer policies, desk research was conducted in early 2025, resulting in a merged dataset of 53 policies across 23 countries and the European Union (EU) that forms the sample for this report’s analysis. Countries were also invited to review and supplement this analysis.

1.2. Major policy groupings

Through the beginning of 2025, global policymaking involving immersive technologies has focused virtually entirely on support for their development and deployment. Within the sample of 53 policies, none constitute regulations that introduce mandatory measures aimed at mitigating potential risks associated with the adoption of these technologies. A small number of countries have introduced policy principles intended to guide the range of actors and stakeholders.

To evaluate in more detail the concrete trends in policymaking on immersive technologies, this report assigns a policy grouping to each individual policy; a small number of policies fit into multiple groupings. The five groupings and their working definitions are as follows:

• Targeted funding: Support is either granted exclusively to projects developing or applying immersive technologies, or there exists a standalone category within the programme that only applies to immersive technologies. Funding streams available for immersive technologies are not fungible with those available for other technologies (13 policies).

• Non-targeted funding: Support is available to a range of technologies which explicitly features at least one type of immersive technology within its scope. Funding is generally implied to be fungible between immersive technologies and other technologies within the policy’s scope, making such policy approaches relatively indirect for supporting immersive technologies (12 policies).

• Digital technology ecosystem support: Support explicitly targets the further development or application of immersive technologies through such avenues as skills development, the provision or upgrading of relevant connectivity infrastructure, support for interoperability or standard-setting activities, or improved digital security or user access as relates to immersive technologies. These policies differ from non-targeted funding in that they are often targeted at immersive technologies, but rather than directly financing individual companies or products, they build up the support structures around immersive technology companies to accelerate R&D, connect them to customers, reduce barriers to scaling, and expose demand-side actors to these technologies through methods such as demonstration projects and thought leadership development (9 policies).

• National or sub-national strategy: Presents a government’s intentions for further developing and deploying one or more technologies, including immersive technologies, to specific ends such as advancing the digital transformation of the economy. While some strategies include commitments to funding of specific projects, others do not feature mandatory expenditures and rather provide directional suggestions for achieving policy aims (19 policies).

• Guidance or policy principles: Specify one or more immersive technologies and emphasise the importance of the technology’s ecosystem supporting values such as trustworthiness, safety, and security in relation to platform developers, providers and users. While voluntary in nature, these principles can influence the development and application of a given technology, are often reflected in companies’ codes of conduct and can serve as a reference for future regulations in areas of demonstrated risk (4 policies).

1.3.  A horizontal view of policymaking

Based on the sample of 53 policies, policymaking featuring immersive technologies has almost entirely taken place since 2010. Moreover, 70% of policies were introduced in 2020 or later. The countries identified as having adopted policies involving these technologies have greatly varied in their approaches, with many having multiple different types of policies in effect in parallel. Although guiding principles and sub-national strategies have been pursued by a relatively small set of jurisdictions, the other policy groupings are all well represented in the sample (See Figure 1).

Table 1. Policy groupings of policies enacted in all jurisdictions in sample

	Targeted funding	Non-targeted funding	Digital technology ecosystem support	National strategy	Sub-national strategy	Guidance or policy principles
Belgium	☑
Brazil		☑
Canada		☑☑
People’s Republic of China	☑			☑	☑
Colombia	☑
Czechia				☑
European Union	☑			☑
Finland				☑
France	☑	☑
Germany	☑☑	☑☑☑		☑
Hungary		☑
Ireland				☑
Japan						☑
Jordan			☑
Korea	☑		☑☑☑	☑☑☑☑☑☑		☑☑☑
Luxembourg	☑
Malaysia				☑
Portugal		☑		☑
Saudi Arabia				☑
Singapore	☑		☑
Spain	☑☑	☑☑	☑☑☑
Türkiye	☑	☑		☑☑
United Arab Emirates					☑
United Kingdom	☑	☑
United States		☑☑

Note: Some policies are categorised under multiple groupings and are designated in grey. China henceforth refers to the People’s Republic of China.

One lens for assessing the types of approaches taken by governments is the OECD’s Going Digital Integrated Policy Framework, which considers 38 policy domains across seven policy dimensions (OECD, 2020[4]). Past research has applied this framework to such areas as artificial intelligence and national digital strategies (Galindo, Perset and Sheeka, 2021[5]; Gierten and Lesher, 2022[6]; OECD, 2024[7]). It can also offer a useful lens for considering the broad contours of policymaking specific to immersive technologies. By mapping the 53 policies in the sample to the seven framework dimensions, policymakers can identify where immersive-related efforts fit relative to a generalised digital policymaking agenda.

Given the emerging nature of immersive technologies, the dimensions addressed by policymakers to date have been substantially shaped by the technologies’ stage of development. The 53 policies examined here collectively present a strong focus on immersive technologies in areas such as infrastructure, R&D and SME and start-up support. These policies reflect a prioritisation of developing immersive solutions and amplifying their potential benefits in sectors ranging from cultural industries to manufacturing. More specifically, many policies emphasise policy issues associated with realising the potential of immersive technologies for innovation (entrepreneurship, sector-specific development and competition) and their effective use across economies and societies (digital government, investment and skills).

In contrast, relatively few policies explicitly address challenges related to trust dimensions (privacy, consumer protection, digital security risk management) or society dimensions (social policies, tax and benefits). In addition to reflecting the relatively limited adoption of these technologies, the lack of immersive technology-specific policymaking in these areas may suggest that technology-neutral policies in areas like privacy are perceived by policymakers as sufficient to cover most eventualities arising from tools such as VR (OECD, 2024[8]).

Many of these 53 policies dovetail well with policy opportunities raised in An Immersive Technologies Policy Primer, reflecting many governments’ visions for spurring growth and harnessing the transformative potential of immersive technologies (OECD, 2025[1]). However, policies introduced to date do not generally feature measures to mitigate risks that may be unique to or exacerbated by the deployment of immersive technologies. Where such issues do appear, they tend to be covered through guiding principles or strategies that signal longer-term intentions rather than imposing immediate requirements or safeguards.