The future of hybrid collaboration: immersive, intelligent, and simple

After spending a few packed days at InfoComm 2025 – exploring booths, chatting with AV and IT pros, and soaking up the buzz – we came away energized and inspired. There was so much innovation on display, but three key trends really stood out to us. In this blog, we’re diving into ideas that we believe will shape the future of collaboration and meeting experiences.

1. Immersive collaboration: making remote feel real

There’s increasing demand for remote meetings to capture the nuances of in-person connection – eye contact, presence, and authentic engagement. At InfoComm, we saw remarkable efforts toward that goal.

One standout demo was HP & Google’s Beam – a glasses-free 3D experience that delivers incredibly lifelike visuals between two people. It felt like sitting across the table with a remote person. However, it's still a one-on-one prototype and far from being cost-effective for wider room setups. If it becomes more accessible, we can see it may create powerful experiences in executive suites, or even for personal use where people are looking for connectedness with their loved ones. For now, though, we’re happy to see HP and Google being bold with a disruptive product. It’s a compelling peek into what’s next, and we’re curious to see how it will evolve.

2. AI as the intelligent meeting partner

We’ve all gotten used to the AI basics for meeting rooms: background noise suppression, auto-framing cameras, live captions. These AI-driven features are now expected in any decent hybrid meeting setup. But what’s exciting – and what we heard being talked about at InfoComm – is where AI goes next: from being just a helpful tool to becoming a meeting facilitator.

One of the most interesting visions in this space is what Microsoft is doing with its new Facilitator experience in Teams Rooms. Facilitator is designed to sit alongside you during the meeting and take the mental load off your shoulders. It can:

Generate meeting notes as the conversation unfolds
Summarize discussions mid-way through and at the end
Highlight action points and decisions
Prompt quieter participants to contribute
Even attribute who said what, so you don’t miss any context

But AI isn't just transforming what happens during the meeting. It is also playing a bigger role behind the scenes. Tools like NetSpeek’s Lena, a generative AI solution built specifically for commercial AV and UC networks, help room admins manage complex, multi-vendor technology ecosystems. Lena automates installation, troubleshooting, and reporting across collaborative spaces, helping IT teams keep rooms up and running without constant manual oversight.

This is the shift we’re seeing: AI moving from passive assistant to active participant. And honestly, that feels like a natural next step. In a world where meetings can be overwhelming or unevenly balanced, having a digital partner that helps guide the flow and captures the essentials – that’s something worth leaning into.

3. All-in-one devices and interoperability simplify deployment

One other theme that kept coming up at InfoComm: making hybrid collaboration work at scale shouldn’t add complexity – it should make deployment smoother, smarter, and simpler.

What stood out was the growing focus on device-to-device interoperability. Enterprise meeting rooms now rely on a wide range of integrated peripherals – from displays to cameras and speakerphones – and the expectation is clear: everything should work together effortlessly, right out of the box.

We saw growing interest in unified solutions, for example with Lenovo and Shure. Both companies presented new systems to reduce complexity, supporting both traditional videoconferencing and flexible hybrid engagement models – designed for IT teams looking to simplify meeting room setups.

Final thoughts

Wrapping up our takeaways from InfoComm, one thing is clear: the new era of collaboration will be more intuitive, more intelligent, and far easier to manage at scale.

What impressed us most wasn’t just the tech itself, but the intention behind it – tools designed to support natural human connection, simplify deployment, and create meeting spaces that adapt to the people in them.

The innovation isn’t slowing down anytime soon, and we’ll be watching closely to see which trends turn into lasting transformation.

Oliver Van Camp

Product Director, Meeting Experience

As Product Director, Oliver Van Camp is leading the global innovation, product management and design teams of the Meeting Experience business unit at Barco. As an expert in defining product vision and strategy, his focus is on ensuring product teams deliver valuable products for customers and the business. Oliver is passionate about building a world of work where people truly connect, collaborate and co-create in meaningful experiences through the ClickShare portfolio.

Over the years, Oliver has built up experience in digital workplace technologies, product management, innovation and go-to-market strategies. Before joining Barco, he worked in various product and consultant roles for the likes of Proximus, PSA Group, Ferranti Computer Systems, and 9Altitudes.