CGS Immersive Expands Cicero into a Unified AI Platform for Hiring, Learning, and Frontline Readiness

Award-winning, lifelike roleplay solution now supports job readiness with new capabilities across the full lifecycle of work

NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CGS Immersive™, the enterprise learning leader that is modernizing training and development with AI and immersive technologies, today announced a major expansion of its AI-powered roleplay solution Cicero™, evolving it into an end-to-end platform designed to help enterprise clients interview candidates, hire the right people, and continuously upskill employees for the real-life, business-critical experiences they have in modern workplaces.

The Cicero unified platform is a single, governed environment for AI-powered workforce enablement -- built on the proven Cicero role play experience and strengthened by enterprise-grade security, scalable deployment, and analytics. Expanded capabilities include interviewing, coaching, skills assessment, XR collaboration and training, and customer-facing kiosks, helping organizations:

Improve hiring quality, faster and more cost effectively
Enhance knowledge
Accelerate skills proficiency
Drive incremental revenue
Strengthen human performance

Since its debut less than a year ago, Cicero helps global enterprises upskill employees through hyper-realistic, AI-driven roleplay that simulates real-world conversations with dynamic, unscripted scenarios, delivering real-time feedback to trainees and L&D leaders. Cicero has transformed roleplay, making it affordable and scalable for global teams, across any role, anytime, anywhere, and in any language.

“Cicero is the next chapter in our decades-long obsession with using technology to transform business outcomes, not just processes,” said Phil Friedman, Founder & Executive Chairman, CGS Immersive. “As part of the CGS family, Cicero brings our heritage in innovation, operational excellence, and human-centered design into a single platform that helps clients hire smarter, coach continuously, and build more resilient workforces for whatever comes next.”

According to PwC, productivity losses tied to skills gaps are projected to reach trillions of dollars by 2030 in the U.S. alone, underscoring how the stakes are rising. As AI and automation take over low-complexity and rote work, organizations need new ways to develop the judgment, empathy, and communication that define high-value human work.

“Today’s competitive advantage lives in human judgment, empathy, and on-your-feet problem-solving,” said Doug Stephen, President of CGS Immersive. “The challenge is that employees are often expected to demonstrate these skills without any meaningful real-world practice. Cicero changes the equation by giving organizations a way to prepare people for complex conversations and decisions before they happen with realism, consistency, and scale.”

“Organizations are at a critical inflection point in workforce transformation, where human skills are no longer so-called soft skills but the real differentiator in an AI‑enabled world,” said Amy Loomis, PhD, Research Vice President, Future of Work at IDC. “What’s compelling about Cicero is its end‑to‑end approach: by connecting hiring, assessment, continuous coaching, and immersive practice in one platform, it gives enterprises a closed loop for developing these capabilities at scale and linking them directly to retention, performance, and readiness for new roles.”

A unified AI platform for performance across the enterprise

Cicero brings interviewing, learning, coaching, assessment, and frontline support together in one governed AI environment, so organizations can build, measure, and continuously improve real-world performance at scale with features including:

Cicero Interview: AI-powered interviewing at enterprise scale, helping organizations and candidates prepare for and conduct interviews faster and more effectively. Instead of relying on resumes and scripted questions, Cicero places candidates into realistic, role-specific scenarios that surface how they think, communicate, and solve problems. It enables structured interviews designed to scale, reducing time-to-first-interview from weeks to hours, and gives candidates a realistic, consistent experience. Built with identity verification and liveness checks, Cicero Interview helps deter deepfakes and proxy interviewing, giving hiring teams confidence in process integrity. Cicero Interview improves hiring quality and plugs seamlessly into existing workflows via integrations with applicant tracking systems (ATS).
Cicero Coach: An always-on, AI-powered mentor embedded within everyday tools, delivering confidential, in-the-flow of work answers and role-specific guidance grounded in company policies, SOPs, and institutional knowledge. Cicero engages employees in natural, conversational exchanges that reflect the real questions, emotions, and pressures they experience on the job.

Cicero Assessment: AI-powered assessments and proctoring that make every interaction measurable, delivering explainable scoring and defensible proof of competence for regulators, customers, and leadership. Far beyond stand-alone tests, Cicero’s assessments are integrated into the mission-critical decisions organizations make every day in regulated environments and fast-moving operations where performance and consistency matter. With assessments rooted in realistic, scenario-based experiences, organizations gain clearer insight into how people will actually perform under pressure.
Cicero XR: Mixed-reality simulations that connect Cicero to the physical world, enabling frontline teams to rehearse procedures, handle equipment, and respond to incidents safely. Cicero extends the platform’s lifelike, emotion-rich practice into immersive environments that feel like the real floor, field, or facility -- but without risk to people or operations.
Cicero Kiosk: Agentic AI ambassadors that can guide orders, answer questions, and recommend next-best actions in retail and hospitality environments. These kiosks bring Cicero’s conversational intelligence to customer touchpoints, creating continuity between how employees practice and how customers experience the brand.

The Cicero platform has a governed, secure microservices architecture with curated prompts, reusable AI building blocks, and deep analytics -- allowing enterprises to scale AI-driven use cases while maintaining control, consistency, and trust.

To learn more about Cicero and its expanded suite of solutions, visit www.cgsimmersive.com.

About CGS Immersive
At CGS Immersive, we don’t just adapt to change; we co-architect it with our clients. As a trusted transformation partner, we bring a future-of-work-informed change methodology together with Extended Reality (XR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and lifelike simulations to turn workforce and operational challenges into measurable business outcomes. Our team blends top ranked strategists, designers, and technologists to deliver on-the-job experiences that are faster, smarter, and more impactful, helping organizations build resilient, future ready workforces and operations at a global scale.

Media Contact
Alan Marcus
amarcus@cgsinc.com

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