The Hottest Trends in Hybrid Meeting Room Technology for 2023

The Biggest Trends for Hybrid Room Kits

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The Hottest Trends in Hybrid Room Kits for 2022
Meeting Rooms and DevicesInsights

Published: May 3, 2023

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

Hybrid meetings have become a staple of the modern workforce. Ever since the pandemic, countless companies have begun rapidly shifting to a new, more agile working environment, prioritising flexibility, and diversity. The right hybrid meeting room technology and equipment ensures teams scattered across a distributed environment can maintain high levels of collaboration and productivity.  

As the workplace continues to evolve, with only 11% of companies saying they plan on returning to in-office work full-time, the components of an effective hybrid meeting space have transformed. In recent years, we’ve seen the introduction of various new solutions, intended to better synchronise staff, enhance engagement, and promote a strong company culture. 

Today, we’re looking at just some of the trends currently influencing the hybrid meeting rooms of today and tomorrow, to help business leaders make the right investment decisions. 

Increasing Flexibility in Deployment Options 

In the past, many corporate meeting rooms were relatively large, spaces, professionally outfitted with carefully-chosen solutions for business conversations.  

While many of these environments offered access to video and audio conferencing solutions, configuring, and arranging meetings was often a complex, time-consuming process. As hybrid and remote work have become more commonplace, and meetings are taking place more frequently, businesses have begun focus on more flexible, straightforward toolkits.  

Today, US businesses host around 11 million video conferencing meetings each day, and not every team will have access to an IT expert to configure a meeting environment.  

As such, vendors in the AV landscape are introducing simpler, plug-and-play solutions, capable of transforming any room into a meeting environment. These solutions can adapt to suit virtually any layout, with fewer wires and components. Not only are these tools often vendor agnostic, but they’re also much easier to access, with some companies offering “rooms as a service” on a subscription basis, to companies in search of budget-friendly meeting solutions. 

Enhanced Displays and Peripherals 

Hosting effective meetings in the world of hybrid work requires companies to leverage more than just excellent speakers, microphones, and cameras. They also need displays capable of sharing valuable content, and assisting team members with managing their meetings. While many companies may continue to use laptop screens and other traditional displays in their meeting spaces, more advanced solutions are emerging, offering touch-free accessibility, via voice and gesture control.  

Not only are these tools much easier to use in a hybrid environment where teams are still concerned about hygiene and workplace safety, but they can help to improve immersion and engagement in a meeting too. Large LED video walls are becoming commonplace in environments where businesses want to ensure their remote team members don’t feel like second-hand citizens.  

Alongside displays for video content, many organizations are also creating compelling digital whiteboards and tools which make it easier for teams to work collaboratively on spreadsheets, documents, and brainstorming sessions, through a variety of apps. These whiteboards allow users both in the office and working remotely to comment on and annotate documents in real-time. 

Extended Reality 

While intelligent tools for video and audio conferencing can help to improve the engagement in a hybrid meeting, many businesses have still struggled to recreate the sense of presence offered by a traditional conference room with current technologies. As such, organisations are beginning to turn to the world of extended reality, for enhanced immersion during crucial collaborative sessions.  

Virtual reality headsets and software can allow employees to share a virtual environment during meetings, where they can share content and interact with avatars representing colleagues. Augmented reality tools can help remote employees to see and interact with digital content, leveraging three-dimensional assets. Even mixed reality is becoming more commonplace in business spaces.  

MR tools can bring holographic representations of documents, items, and people to users wherever they are, allowing for a more interactive, versatile, and immersive overall experience. As XR tools become more accessible, thanks to affordable technology and 5G connectivity, we may begin to see a lot more immersive content in hybrid meetings.  

Increasing Artificial Intelligence 

 AI has had a profound impact on various parts of the workplace, changing the way we access information and interact with others. In the hybrid meeting room environment, sensors enhanced with AI can monitor the usage of a meeting room, and provide business leaders with crucial information about how their teams interact. The same AI solutions can also automatically recognise employees when they enter a meeting room, configuring software to match their specifications.  

Intelligence built into meeting room equipment can also have a significant impact on the productivity and efficiency of meetings. Cameras with AI software built-in can automatically track a speaker as they move around a space, and frame employees more effectively in a meeting app, to improve engagement. Speakers and microphones with AI technology included can eliminate excess noise, improve audio quality, and enhance understanding.  

AI tools in the meeting space can even leverage virtual assistants and bots to assist users with automatically recording crucial conversations, transcribing discussions, and even translating information into different languages for attendees.  

Greater Technology Personalization 

With more employees now working in a flexible, distributed environment, it’s becoming harder for businesses to ensure everyone uses the same assets and tools during a meeting. Because of this, vendors in the AV and meetings landscape are focusing on the development of toolkits that can be customised and personalised to suit a range of different needs.  

As mentioned above, many of the top hybrid meeting room solutions available today are vendor agnostic, allowing employees to leverage any meeting room software they choose alongside their hardware. They can also easily connect with a variety of different devices, ensuring team members can join a meeting easily through a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.  

Flexible meeting rooms solutions can integrate with a wide variety of different apps and tools for scheduling and meeting management. Many even come with their own cloud-based portal where business leaders can monitor crucial statistics, remotely configure equipment and more, without having to invest in specialist support.  

 

 

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