Bogotá, Colombia. Inside an adidas Global Business Services conference room, a hundred learners watch the demo go live. The platform loads. The first immersive scenario opens. The energy in the room shifts — fast, visible, audible. People lean forward. A few laugh. Someone in the back row says, in Spanish, that this is the first time language training has ever looked like something he actually wants to do!

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That reaction is exactly what years of low-engagement programs never produced.

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Watch the Adidas launch video here! 

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Why adidas Moved

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The cost of getting workplace fluency wrong is no longer abstract. The Fluency Tax — the operational drag organizations pay when employees can't communicate confidently across languages — runs roughly $4,700 per employee, per year. Three hours a week, per person, lost to miscommunication, delayed escalations, and meetings that have to be repeated in writing.

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Inside a Global Business Services division, those hours stack faster than anywhere else. GBS exists to serve a multinational from a single hub. The Bogotá hub serves operations across Latin America, North America, and Europe.

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Fluency is the job description, not a development perk.

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So the brief was simple: move 100+ learners through English, Portuguese, and French — together, on one platform, with measurable progress.

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The Category They Left Behind

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For years, adidas — like most global enterprises — bought language training the way the market sold it. Annual licenses. Self-paced modules. Certificates filed away in HR systems. Engagement hovering in the 10–20% range that the industry has quietly accepted as normal.

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That category has a name now: **Fake Fluency**. Employees who pass the test and still go silent on a regional call. Hours logged, capability untouched. A line item that produces compliance but not conversation.

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adidas's leadership team saw the gap between the certificates on file and the conversations their people were actually trying to have. They moved.

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What They Moved To

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Fluency Performance is a different category. The work isn't measured by hours studied — it's measured by what people can do in a real meeting, on a real call, under real pressure. IMMERSE is the world's only Fluency Performance Platform built around that standard. Engagement rates land at **88% or higher**, versus the 10–20% norm. Time to functional proficiency moves **7–9× faster** than traditional programs.

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adidas joins a roster of globally recognized brands choosing Fluency Performance over legacy training: Bosch, Santander, Fortinet, Google, Meta, Amazon, Grupo Promax, Constellation Brands, Vitro, and Warner Bros.

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"The talent inside adidas Bogotá is already there," said Kristin Smith, SVP of Sales at IMMERSE. "What they needed was an environment where 100+ people could practice English, Portuguese, and French until the words feel like theirs — in months, not years. That's what we're here to deliver."

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At the end of the program year, the top learner across the adidas Bogotá cohort walks away with a pair of Meta Ray-Bans. How cool is that?! 

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