Download the Collaboration Market Guide

Video collaboration has emerged as one of the most crucial tools in our communication kit for the modern workplace. As trends like remote and distance working continue to gain speed, video collaboration ensures that team members can maintain crucial connections at a distance. Not only can we communicate freely through video collaboration, but we can also access essential aspects of human connectivity that cant be unlocked with other types of communication, such as body language.

As the demand for video collaboration technology has increased, so too has the need for innovative new tools and features that make this method of discussion more appealing. According to Frost and Sullivan, AI is beginning to bring more reliability and productivity into the meeting room. Virtual assistants can take notes or schedule follow-up meetings with nothing but a voice command.

At the same time, artificial intelligence and bots can transcribe and translate conversations between global team members in seconds, while making the meeting room safer with tools like biometric security. So, whats driving video collaboration forward in 2020?

Artificial intelligence is beginning to play a role in various aspects of our lives. In the office, a voice-enabled smart assistant can arrange meetings and take notes for us in seconds. In the meeting room, AI-driven devices can make sessions run more efficiently by automating tasks like rescheduling calls or sending crucial notifications. AI assistants can even suggest which resources or documents a person may need for a meeting and make them available to access when the conference begins.

Artificial intelligence with natural language processing also improves video collaboration applications in various ways. It can facilitate the automatic transcription or translation of meetings, ensuring that people from around the world can collaborate more efficiently. AI can also improve audio quality by automatically detecting echo and minimizing background noise.

Some businesses are even bringing AI into the video collaboration space with computer vision, helping to frame meeting participants and ensure that everyone can appears clearly. Some tools can even ensure that whiteboards and presentation screens always get enough attention in a video.

Its not just the arrival of new bots and assistants in the collaboration space thats changing the way that we work together. Video collaboration is also affected by the transformation of the meeting spaces that we work in. Ad-hoc huddle rooms and more impromptu spaces are overtaking large board rooms and complicated video meeting environments are being quickly replaced by.

Huddle rooms allow employees to tap into high-quality meeting environments within a matter of minutes. There are video collaboration software and hardware kits that come with plug and play functionality today, so that team members can instantly start a meeting, without having to wait for set-up help from an IT expert.

Advanced and flexible new meeting room spaces ensure that employees from all backgrounds can still enjoy efficient and effective collaboration experiences. Anywhere can now become a meeting space, from a shared environment in a co-working space, to a home environment, or a small spare office in the workplace. AI can even make these spaces more effective by enabling things like blurred backgrounds that eliminate distractions in a busy setting or using noise features to improve the clarity of a users voice.

The video conferencing market alone will be worth around $6.7 billion by 2025.

While the world is beginning to see the benefits of video collaboration at an incredible scale, its important to remember that any new technology does come with challenges. For instance, now that team members can tap into a video meeting from anywhere in the world, there are security and compliance issues to consider.

Business leaders will need to ensure that the right policies are in place to stop team members from signing into dangerous applications and websites using business credentials. VPNs and other security measures may need to be implemented for those who want to join a meeting from an environment with a less secure connection. Just like bringing external devices into the office environment requires a BYOD policy, taking video collaboration outside of the traditional office will require its own protection measures. Business leaders will need to:

Embracing the age of visual communication means making it as easy as possible for your team members to access the tools that they need to interact with. Choosing video collaboration tools that offer things like one-click join facilities, and the ability to dial in from any phone could be an excellent way to get started. Some companies are even using strategies like Microsoft Teams with Direct Routing to ensure that their employees can get all the benefits of their favourite collaboration tools, without having to switch to a new phone service provider.

However, theres more to consider when it comes to ensuring adoption than simplicity. Businesses will also need to think about how theyre going to ensure that their video collaboration strategy works with the rest of the tools that their teams use every day.

Interoperability is often a crucial consideration in ensuring adoption. Creating an environment where your employees can start a video meeting naturally from within the applications that theyre using to connect with coworkers already will make it much easier for video to become a part of your culture.

Most business leaders and technology experts agree that the future is in visual communications. From a collaboration perspective, video gives team members an excellent way to work with each other face-to-face, no matter where they are. In a time when remote and distance working are becoming more popular, video is the only way to preserve the crucial intimate human connections and facial expressions that exist in real-life interactions.

However, preparing for the implementation of visual communication and collaborations in your business means considering a range of things, from how youre going to ensure adoption, to how you can maintain security and compliance.

If you havent started planning for a visual future yet, now is the time to start.

Download the Collaboration Market Guide

Excerpt from:

The Collaboration Market: The Role of AI and Disruption - UC Today