Collaboration is more crucial than ever in today's hybrid work world, where team members connect from various locations to solve important problems and address valuable opportunities.
That may help explain why time spent in meetings is skyrocketing. The average time a user spends in weekly meetings on Microsoft Teams has shot up 252% since February 2020.
Meetings are clearly growing in importance. Businesses can’t succeed without them, and everybody wants to use their time wisely and get the most out of meetings. But meeting fatigue – or the MEGO (My eyes glaze over) effect, as one tech reporter calls it - remains a real challenge, draining people’s energy, creating stress and leading to suboptimal results.
In today’s modern workplace, we need a better approach. AI-powered meeting advancements are now meeting the moment – energizing and elevating experiences by supercharging productivity, saving time, enabling more engaging interactions and amplifying creativity.
Top trends include generative AI integration, real-time language translation, emotion and sentiment analysis, virtual and augmented reality meetings and AI meeting assistants.
Here are a few examples of how AI is moving forward to energize and improve meetings.
AI continues to automate routine tasks that can needlessly consume meeting time and decrease meeting productivity. With AI’s evolution, AI now extends to more complex functions as well. For instance, AI can now suggest optimal meeting times based on participants' schedules and energy levels, and automatically create and distribute comprehensive meeting summaries.
Everyone works differently. AI now tailors content presentation based on participants' learning styles and preferences. Intelligent video solutions use dynamic camera switching and voice-activated speaker tracking to direct attention to current speakers. AI can also detect when attention levels are low and suggest breaks or activities to amp up the group’s engagement.
AI can optimize agendas to keep the focus on the most important things for optimal productivity. Now AI can also predict potential discussion points based on recent company events or project updates. This works to ensure relevant, forward-looking meetings.
New innovations also now enable AI to take a broader view. AI can predict when meetings are necessary and when asynchronous communication would be more effective. When people use AI to turn a meeting into a structured, easy-to-digest document, what happens in that meeting becomes “easy to interact with after the fact,” says Microsoft Scientist Aaron Halfaker, adding “That might change the way people think about what meetings they need to attend.”
The most competitive businesses are already using Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 to empower teams to arrive at meetings prepped and ready, get up to speed fast if they arrive to meetings after the start, ensure post-meeting alignment, stay structured and work their way.
Arrive prepped and ready: Getting ready for a meeting can be a scramble, but Copilot makes it easy. It scours dense and complex documents for highlights and key details, so people don’t have to. Copilot can also organize that information into easy-to-consume highlights and can plug those bullet points into a concise but detailed email to help all team members get prepared.
Get up to speed fast: Joining meetings in progress can be confusing and stressful. But it doesn’t have to be. Copilot can tell you what you missed and what’s most relevant to you. If someone’s talking and you can’t quite follow the thread, Copilot offers clarity. Copilot will even keep the conversation moving forward, ensuring you’re covering all the bases to set you up for success.
Align quickly: People can also leverage Copilot to get details on key decisions made in the meeting. Copilot can help clarify points that came up in the discussion. Plus, Copilot will create meeting summaries to share with the team, including team members who were unable to attend the meeting. Copilot can even collect and share recent communications with the client.
Get more done: Copilot can generate a briefing summary based on the presentation and help you fine tune that draft. Rather than spending hours reading and analyzing resources, you can move faster, using Copilot to quickly filter through and pull key insights from spreadsheets.
Do it your way: That’s a lot of value and efficiency. But every business works at differently, so you can also use Microsoft Copilot Studio to make Copilot work to align with your preferences.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Collaboration is more important than ever. Harness the power of AI to foster genuine human connection. People are spread far and wide in today’s hybrid, virtual work world. It’s imperative to find new and better ways to bring people together.
Microsoft named its AI technology Copilot because that’s exactly how it was designed to work – as tool to enhance and streamline work, not be a replacement for the people at the controls. Bring AI into your organization to modernize the way work is done before, during and after meetings. Microsoft research indicates AI could help people reduce meeting FOMO, give them more time for focused work, help leaders unclog their calendars and reduce meeting burnout.
With great power comes great responsibility, and AI is incredibly powerful. Invest in a comprehensive training program to teach people how, when and for what to use AI. Providing both the tools and the knowledge will help ensure widespread adoption and effective use of AI. Education won’t be a one-and-done exercise. AI is evolving, so plan for continuous learning.
This dovetails with our earlier conversation about AI responsibility. Yes, AI end users in your organization must use AI-powered tools the right way. But you and your AI partners must also prioritize robust data protection measures and transparent AI usage policies from the start to ensure compliance; safeguard your organization, customers and partners; and build trust.
AI has arrived. But it’s evolving too. If you haven’t already gotten started with AI, get going today. But make sure you have the strategy, technology and partners to remain agile as AI technology, the market, and the needs and wants of your business and your customers evolve. Hybrid is here to stay, collaboration is growing, and AI is here to make it all easier and better. But there’s a lot to consider, and much to do, and you don’t need to go it alone.
Diversified, a designated Microsoft solutions provider, can work with you to understand your needs, implement the solutions that work best for you and deliver the greatest possible value. A global leader in AV innovation, Diversified has earned the trust of global enterprises by designing and building environments that bring people together and drive business results. Our Microsoft designation and experience in design, integration and global management services equip clients with the innovative solutions they need today and position them for what’s next.