Remote Work Technology Spending Stabilizes at Three Times Pre-2020 Levels Globally

## A New Normal Confirmed Enterprise remote and hybrid work technology spending — covering video conferencing, collaboration platforms, virtual desktop infrastructure, and remote access security — has stabilized at approximately 3× its pre-COVID 2019 baseline globally, according to Gartner's 2026 Digital Workplace Technology Survey covering 1,200 organizations across 40 countries. ## Spending Composition Has Shifted The composition of spending has changed materially from 2020-2022's "everything remote" emergency procurement. Video conferencing licensing costs have actually declined as the market consolidated around Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. The growth areas in 2025-2026 are AI-powered productivity features, async-first collaboration tools, and zero-trust network access replacing VPN. ## AI Meeting Intelligence The fastest-growing category within collaboration is AI meeting intelligence: tools that transcribe, summarize, extract action items, and generate follow-up communications from meetings automatically. Gartner reports 71% of knowledge-worker organizations have deployed at least one AI meeting intelligence tool, up from 12% in 2023. ## The Hybrid Equilibrium Three days in office, two days remote has emerged as the modal hybrid arrangement in the survey — 38% of knowledge-worker organizations report this as their standard. The equilibrium reflects a negotiated balance between employer preference for more in-office time and employee preference for more remote flexibility. ## Geographic Variation US organizations average 2.8 in-office days per week. UK organizations average 2.5. Continental European organizations average 3.2. Australian organizations average 2.3. Asian organizations — particularly Japan, South Korea, and China — trend more strongly toward in-office, averaging 3.8-4.2 days.