Insights from 512 IT Decision Makers about AI Adoption in the Workplace, Reliability, and What’s Coming Next
MINNEAPOLIS – March 25, 2026 – How does your collaboration environment stack up? FORTÉ, a global leader in communication and collaboration solutions for the modern workplace, today released The State of Modern Collaboration Spaces, a new study that gives IT leaders a detailed look at where the AV industry stands on AI adoption, what's driving reliability failures, and where enterprise collaboration solution investment is headed. The findings are based on responses from 512 U.S. IT decision-makers.
The study found that AI-enabled collaboration is now embedded across modern workplaces, yet meetings continue to break down for reasons that have little to do with features. Challenges like day-to-day reliability and predictable performance carry a true operational cost.
IT leaders estimate their teams would reclaim an average of 52 hours per month if their top meeting-related technology issues were eliminated.
KEY FINDINGS
Across organizations, the study reveals six patterns shaping meeting room technology:
- Despite widespread AI adoption, technology failures and join friction remain the leading cause of lost meeting productivity.
- Collaboration solution features like touch-to-join and AI-supported transcription have shifted from differentiators to the expected norm.
- The next wave of AI investment isn't about adding meeting features. IT leaders signaled a clear shift toward AI that operates in the background.
- Meeting room reliability issues are quietly consuming IT resources at scale.
- IT leaders are prioritizing collaboration investments that advance clear strategic outcomes rather than feature lists.
- Collaboration solution budgets are on the rise, but so is the pressure to demonstrate measurable outcomes from every dollar spent.
"There's a lot of excitement about what AI can do in the meeting room, and rightfully so. But what this research tells us is that the foundation has to come first,” said Keith Yandell, Executive Vice President of Innovation at FORTÉ. “You can stack the most sophisticated AI tools on top of a collaboration environment, and if the basics aren't working, none of it lands. Before you can know where to go next, you need an honest picture of where you are right now. And this is what the research findings give you."
Organizations that close the gap between what their technology promises and what it delivers every day are the ones turning collaboration investment into a genuine competitive advantage.
The State of Modern Collaboration Spaces is available for download now. It includes an executive summary, survey-backed findings, and FORTÉ's own framework for helping IT leaders decide where to place their focus in the months ahead.
