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.