How AI is Playing Catalyst in Strengthening the Hybrid Working Environment

Imagine this. Stuck in noisy traffic for hours, sitting at a desk and staring at the screen so hard that most often than not, you forget blinking or even to hydrate yourself. Now, that was the normal work culture before the pandemic swept everyone away like a tsunami.

It’s been a little over 3 years since COVID-19 ushered in the era of work from home and employees are feeling fitter, more content, and more balanced than ever.

A hybrid working environment has become the new normal for both employers as well as employees alike. Needless to say, AI has been instrumental in bringing forth this magnanimous work revolution. Some organizations like Yelp, which is shutting its headquarters and going fully remote, are extensively favoring this part-remote, part-office trend permanently; some are going completely remote while for some, the transition has not been all that smooth.

The Power of Connecting Anytime, Anywhere

Today, people have the power, freedom, and technology to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Traditional boundaries, the brick-and-mortar setting, and investing enormous time commuting to your work location, are a passé.

WFH was not anticipated or planned by anyone, however, post the pandemic; surveys indicate that employees have taken to work-from-home settings quite nicely and prefer the remote/hybrid working style more than working from the office.

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Deciphering a Hybrid Work Environment

Let’s first start by deciphering what a hybrid work environment means. This model is a mix of remote work and working directly from offices.

Leaders’ Take on the Hybrid Work Environment

Here’s what leaders feel about a hybrid work environment:

Sharing his views on the work-from-home model, Marck Zuckerberg once said, “People are more productive working at home than people would have expected. Some people thought that everything was just going to fall apart, and it hasn’t.”

HubSpot’s Chief People Officer, Katie Burke generously supported remote work too. She stated, “Do you want to access talent everywhere, or just in specific markets? If the answer is everywhere, you need to be at least open to the possibility of remote work.” This statement couldn’t be truer. Why should any employer be restricted geographically if they have found the right talent and skilled employee?

From an employer’s point of view, LinkedIn’s vice president of talent solutions, Mark Lobosco says, “Now that companies have built the framework – and experienced the cost and time savings associated with it – there’s no real reason to turn back.”

Digital Nomad Life on the Rise

Why not indulge in sunbathing or sipping some iced tea while working through those spreadsheets from some exotic faraway land? Today, there’s a steady rise in the numbers of anywhere workers aka digital nomads. But first, let’s ask who digital nomads are. Digital nomads can be defined as remote workers who are working while traveling to different locations. Digital nomads could be self-employed individuals, remote workers, and freelancers who love the idea of working from anywhere. Their only requirement is internet connectivity to enable them to stay connected to their jobs, clients, and teams. They could be content creators, designers, developers, or programmers.

When remote working first came into effect, it opened a whole new world and a myriad of opportunities. Candidates are now specifically seeking job opportunities that allow them to work remotely. More and more people want to embrace a location-independent lifestyle supported by technology that empowers them to travel, explore, and work simultaneously. It’s true, with a hybrid working environment; you start thinking through the limitless opportunities.

Michael Youngblood, CEO of Unsettled, sums it up very aptly, “If we could be somewhere, experiencing the world in a beautiful setting while working, challenging ourselves, growing professionally, enjoying a community of like-minded people, and connecting locally, what’s stopping us?”

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A study stated that by 2025, the number of remote workers is likely to double what it was in the pre-pandemic stage.

Today, majority of the digital nomads are very satisfied with their job, the freedom of mobility, the opportunity to explore newer places, and the income. The opportunity to meet and mingle with new, interesting people, and experience new cultures in an economical setup is luring the majority of job seekers today.

Digital nomads also typically spend more than 35% of their income in the location where they are staying, an injection of capital that has been shown to stimulate local economies in popular destinations, primarily promoting the service industry and the sale of consumer goods.

AI-backed Hybrid Work Revolution

While ‘work wherever your skill shines the best’ seems to be the motto for most bosses, one cannot forget the marvelous technology which is making this a reality every single day. Ever since the pandemic threw a curve ball, AI and AI-empowered tools have consistently played catalysts in supporting the hybrid work environment. From virtual meetings and virtual guided mediation classes to time-tracking calendars and video chats, AI has been the driving force in making the hybrid work situation a success.

Let’s Take a Look at the Rise of AI in the Hybrid Working Environment

Smart Video

One of the key factors that are enabling a hybrid work environment a viable success is Smart Video. It not just provides an immersive experience but also makes communications more efficient as well as personal. One of the AI features that is making people more confident in opting for remote work is the option to change the screen layout during a video meeting. Remote workers are using video conferencing platforms like Zoom or Skype to connect for meetings and features like lighting adjustments, facial smoothness, and changing the background image help them look more presentable on camera and help them put across a professional appearance consistently.

How Zoom is Using AI-enabled Tools to Aid Remote Working

According to a report from Harvard, Zoom integrated AI at the core of the product. In the case of Zoom, almost all of its features have AI embedded in them in some or the other form.

Take a look at the features below:

Virtual background

To make you look professional even from the corner of your home, Zoom has this special virtual background feature that allows you to either blur your background or change the background into an image or a video. This Ai feature uses a machine vision technique known as Image Segmentation which focuses on the subject and subtracts the background.

Video compression

Video compression uses a technique similar to the virtual background one where it identifies the most relevant sections of the image and enhances the resolution.

Audio processing

Zoom uses a Deep Learning algorithm to improve audio quality during meetings. With the help of toolkits such as Keras, Tensorflow, or PyTorch, the system applies a host of learning models such as Voice Activity Detection, Speaker Recognition, Speech Enhancement, and Music Detection.

Live transcription

This feature is like the icing on the cake on bad audio days or the days your kids decide to be a part of your meeting. The video platform uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) technologies like Speech-to-Text, translation, summarization, and sentiment analysis to offer a live transcription to the participants with bad audio. Armed with these powerhouse features, the host of the meeting can now view a live transcription of the conversation. This feature is especially helpful when the audio quality is bad or the speaker is not audible.

Anti-fraud

To prevent fraudulent activities, Zoom uses machine learning techniques like to identify and prevent activities such as telephone fraud, nudity, spam, etc.

Instant Meeting

With its integration with Google’s Ai assistant, now setting up meetings from your NestHub is super quick and easy. All you have to do is say “Hey Google, Start a Zoom Call” and voila it’s done. To prioritize Zoom traffic, you can set up Google WiFi and Nest routers.

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Zoom Rooms

This doesn’t apply to the remote working model yet this technology is brilliant, to begin with. Zoom is now offering recommended hardware to set up Zoom Rooms with amazing features like auto-cracking cameras, speaker focus, and people counting.

Apps to Plan Your Day

Remote working is the way forward, but at times, it can get a little overwhelming and challenging when you are trying to juggle between tasks and manage your time while at it. Have you ever imagined how sorted your life could be if an app could plan your day and help you enhance your productivity? Welcome to the world of Motion, an AI calendar app that automatically plans a user’s day depending on various factors like deadlines, events, etc. The app keeps a track of your meetings, schedules, deadlines, your shift hours and helps to manage these better.

Motion app works with Microsoft and Google and is available as a desktop app, mobile app, or Chrome extension. The user is required to enter various details like lunchtime and duration, replying to emails, recurring tasks, weekly team meetings, etc. The app uses 3 main features – Tasks, Calendars, and the Booking System. Once you add all the tasks, your calendar is planned considering various factors such as priority, deadline, start date, and your preferred time to work on the task.

Email Assistants to the Rescue 

Emails are undoubtedly the most professional and efficient way of communicating, acknowledging, and documenting important things. But in a sea of automated replies and generic newsletters and no matter how many times you try to de-clutter your inbox; emails will keep swamping your inbox. And, sometimes, unintentionally though, you tend to lose genuine and relevant emails.

Here are a few tools to make your life easy:

Sales Handy

This app’s primary purpose is email tracking and it works best for sales and marketing representatives when you have worked on a campaign and wish to decipher how it’s performing. This app notifies the user when the recipient opens her email. This feature can be turned off as well. With this, you can also draft reply templates so that you save time drafting them.

Flowrite

This Ai-powered app converts your thoughts into well-drafted emails. Flowrite turns bullet points into ready-to-send emails. This comes especially handy when you are sending repetitive emails you are writing every day. This is available as a web app as well as an extension.

Aiko Mail

To amplify your productivity, Aiko allows you to sort emails based on tasks, departments, teams, or client accounts. This app identifies everyday tasks such as signing documents, sharing files, and scheduling meetings and turns them into single-click actions.

Grammarly

Most people would agree that Grammarly is one of the most downloaded apps to take care of all your grammatical needs. Available as an extension as well as a web app, Grammarly removes spelling errors, suggests correct punctuation, and ensures your messages are sounding professional and without any grammatical errors. Besides offering spell-checks, Grammarly also offers hints on vocabulary and provides suggestions on tonal quality.

Emailtree.ai

This app automates email writing and enhances your productivity. The AI technology used in this app helps to decipher the intent of the customers based on the email’s body copy. It helps the user to save time by understanding and prioritizing customer issues. This app classifies emails automatically and enables the frontline employees like customer service representatives to categorize emails and send them to the appropriate person.

With flexibility and a stronger and improved work-life balance and the luxury of working from anywhere, a hybrid work environment model is what most people crave. Many surveys, in the post-pandemic era, have reiterated that a hybrid working environment helps employees increase their productivity, manage their time better, and enjoy better mental health.

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