A startup from the US has created a virtual reality (VR) product that lets people fire virtual employees in practice.

The Southern California-based company, also known as Talespin, claims it designed the product as a means for companies to provide trainings to employees in the form of virtual simulations.

Talespin develops virtual- and augmented-reality training programs for Fortune 500 partners including Farmers Insurance, telecom, and finance companies.

In this particular scenario, the unfortunate employee goes by the name of "Barry Thompson", an elderly white male who is about to be let go by his superior.

"The premise behind the software is giving employees a safe space to practice challenging interpersonal situations, while using AI to create emotionally realistic characters to stimulate and challenge them," says Kyle Jackson, CEO and co-founder of Talespin.

Talespin built Barry using speech recognition, AI, natural language processing, gamified scoring, dynamic feedback, and enterprise learning management system.

Barry is able to converse with a real person wearing the VR headset, display realistic emotions, and understand the context of speech. In other words, its as realistic as firing an actual employee.