Making Distributed Teams More Connected

Making Distributed Teams More Connected

AI-powered discussion highlights to share knowledge with remote team members


PROBLEM AND CHALLENGE

As companies shift from having an entirely in-office workforce to distributed teams, it becomes difficult for these employees to “stay in the loop” with their counterparts in different time zones. While there’s no shortage of tools to communicate, distributed teams are asynchronous and need more documentation.

SOLUTION AND OUTCOME

Loop Team, a startup focused on making distributed teams more connected, used technology developed by SRI International to power their AI-assisted solution. Loop Team applied this technology to extract, highlight and contextualize relevant discussion from virtual meetings.  Remote employees in different time zones and locations can then get relevant snippets of what happened and what they missed while they were offline, asleep, or traveling.

Distributed teams are the future of work, and one of the biggest challenges facing those teams is staying in the loop.  When employees share an office, they can see people, overhear potentially relevant discussions, and be visible. In contrast, remote workers are at home and their interactions are limited mostly to email and chat, so they miss spontaneous discussions, some meetings, water cooler hallway chatter, and more.

To make distributed teams more connected, Loop Team developed a virtual office to provide many of the same benefits of working in the office environment.  With Loop Team, distributed team members can see who is around, who is available, and who they can engage. In addition to rich presence, as mentioned above, remote team members can also see what they missed including conversations and meetings accompanied with AI-powered highlights. 


Read more from SRI