How to Get the Return to the Office Right: Insights from InfoCommHow to Get the Return to the Office Right: Insights from InfoComm
Key among requirements is ensuring that meeting spaces are built with flexibility in mind.
June 18, 2025
As the public debate over return-to-office (RTO) policies continues, many company strategies remain in a state of constant flux. Some business leaders, operating on the belief that innovation and culture are best served by in-person proximity, are mandating a return. Yet, our latest research shows that getting RTO right isn't about mandates; it's about aligning policy with business needs.
At the recent InfoComm conference in Orlando, FL, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion featuring leaders from Cisco, HP, Q-SYS, and Zoom where we discussed how to get return to office right, focusing on what IT, business, and AV leaders need to understand to ensure that they are building a meeting space that is a magnet for employees and that provides a superior collaboration experience compared to remote meetings.
We noted that companies are primarily calling employees back to improve informal collaboration and foster a better company culture. But equipping employees with meeting spaces that aren’t optimized for equity for both in-office and remote employees is a recipe for disaster. Key among requirements is ensuring that meeting spaces are built with flexibility in mind.
Flexibility encompasses a number of different areas including:
Ensuring that the space is adjustable based on meeting type. This includes deployment of flexible hardware such as cameras and touch screens, as well as support, through audio and video configurations, of movable walls to change meeting space size as needed.
Enabling support for a variety of meeting apps to ensure that users have a frictionless experience with any meeting app they use.
Leveraging AI technologies to improve both in-room experiences as well as back-end management ensuring that rooms adjust to capture optimal audio and video of participants.
Implementing an employee feedback mechanism to capture what is working, and what isn’t working, enabling adjustments to achieve improvement.
Working with facilities teams to ensure that they have the information they need to adjust meeting spaces as necessary and accurately plan for future need. This includes occupancy and usage statistics, and could also include data such as air quality management.
Taking advantage of emerging hardware vendor support for streamlining room system deployment.
At InfoComm, vendor announcements were largely focused on these areas, including the following:
Cisco’s new Room Vision PTZ camera that uses AI to better capture in room participants in any spot within a meeting space, enabling more flexible room designs.
Neat new devices to support BYOD in meeting rooms, allowing for flexible use of meeting apps.
Nureva’s launch of HDX pro audio series, designed to expand its virtual microphone solution to larger meeting spaces and support changes in room configuration without requiring changes in microphone placement.
Zoom bringing an enhanced recorder capability to its app, allowing for easy recording of in-person meetings that aren’t using the Zoom meeting service. Zoom also announced a dedicated app for Cisco meeting rooms, enabling those using Cisco video endpoints to easily join Zoom meetings.
One of the more intriguing announcements from InfoComm was focused on improving one-to-one virtual meeting experiences: the introduction of 3-dimensional lifelike conversation experience, HP Dimension with Google Beam. (Beam is the official name of the Starline project that Google announced several years ago in partnership with both HP and Zoom.) Reminiscent of telepresence, Beam is designed to break down the barriers between remote individuals, resulting in conversations that support better engagement and retention.
Here as well the concept of flexibility was on full display as the Dimension room systems are also fully capable of supporting native experiences for Google Meet and Zoom, as well as allowing for multiple attendees within a Beam room (though having more than one person in the room automatically turns off the 3-D experience). Microsoft Teams room support was not announced, but I expect that it is in the works. Dimension is expected to be available toward the end of 2025 at a list price of $24,999. The jury is still out as to whether or not companies will see sufficient value in the Beam experience to justify the cost, but Beam was among the most talked about topics at InfoComm and one the most groundbreaking advancements in meeting technology in recent memory.
Ultimately, getting return to office right is about applying the right solutions to the right use cases. For most, simply having a meeting room that provides high quality audio and video will be sufficient. For others, the immersive experience of Google Beam with HP Dimension devices will justify the expense. For others, different hardware and software configurations will be needed. As several of our panelists noted, listen to users and be willing to adjust room configurations to support both changing requirements and emerging technologies.
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About Metrigy: Metrigy is an innovative research and advisory firm focusing on the rapidly changing areas of workplace collaboration, digital workplace, digital transformation, customer experience and employee experience—along with several related technologies. Metrigy delivers strategic guidance and informative content, backed by primary research metrics and analysis, for technology providers and enterprise organizations
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