Calendars are not crammed with back-to-back nine-to-five conferences – they’re fragmented, shuffled, and consistently altering.
Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs calls this sample micro-shifting, and for IT leaders it’s forcing a rethink of how assembly rooms are designed, deployed, and managed.
At ISE 2026, Weishaupt spoke to UC At the moment about how these evolving work patterns are reshaping hybrid collaboration, the challenges IT groups face, and what techniques are literally holding work flowing.
He described micro-shifting as workers constructing their workdays in small, unpredictable blocks.
“Folks aren’t following a strict schedule anymore – they’re in conferences, switching to centered work, after which dealing with private duties – usually inside the similar hour.”
For IT groups, supporting this flexibility isn’t nearly putting in cameras and microphones – it’s about managing techniques that may deal with fixed change.
Assembly room expertise must be dependable, straightforward to deploy, and predictable, even when the human schedules it helps are something however.
Weishaupt added that the evolution of hybrid work is much less about expertise itself and extra about how organisations construction their help.
“It’s about giving IT groups the instruments to handle a fleet of units seamlessly, whereas nonetheless delivering an incredible expertise for customers,” he mentioned.
“The expertise has to vanish into the room. It ought to simply work.”
Making Expertise Work for IT Groups
Whereas hybrid work has grow to be the norm, many IT groups nonetheless battle with deployment, administration, and help. Weishaupt harassed that one of the best expertise reduces friction for IT whereas nonetheless serving workers’ shifting schedules.
Units like Owl Labs’ 5 Professional – which debuted at ISE 2026 – are aiming as an instance the precept: a number of connectivity choices, easy administration, and the power to combine into present infrastructure with out fixed intervention.
“It’s designed to be a fixture within the room, not only a transportable gadget,” Weishaupt defined. “IT groups can set it up as soon as and depend on it day-after-day.”
The broader level for IT leaders is obvious – flexibility for customers is just precious if it doesn’t come on the expense of manageability.
AI That Really Helps
Amid widespread AI hype, Weishaupt urged IT leaders to give attention to practicality over novelty. “What was referred to as machine studying is now AI,” he mentioned.
“For us, it’s purposeful – serving to handle fleets, establish who’s bodily within the room versus on a display screen, and ensuring calls run easily. That’s it.”
For IT groups, this strategy means AI is just precious when it reduces friction and administrative load.
Predictive upkeep, automated monitoring, and smarter help workflows enable IT workers to give attention to enchancment quite than firefighting, a vital issue as hybrid work and micro-shifting develop extra widespread.
Consistency Throughout Areas and Geographies
Weishaupt famous that whereas totally different organisations have distinctive wants, the core challenges of hybrid collaboration are remarkably comparable throughout industries and geographies. “A room is a room, to a sure extent,” he mentioned.
From Fortune 100 boardrooms to varsities and native governments, IT groups face the identical pressures: unpredictable schedules, various units, and the necessity for dependable techniques.
He emphasised the significance of standardisation with out rigidity. Whereas uniform techniques scale back help prices and enhance reliability, organisations should nonetheless enable flexibility for evolving work strategies, new instruments, and experimentation. “You want stability, however room to develop,” Weishaupt mentioned.
Past units and software program, he highlighted that hybrid work is finally a human problem. Workers now count on flexibility and management over how they work – a shift that calls for IT groups rethink not solely expertise but additionally how they construction help, governance, and deployment.
“Micro-shifting isn’t only a schedule problem,” he mentioned. “It’s about folks attempting to stability private {and professional} priorities inside the similar day. IT has to allow that, not gradual it down.”
The Way forward for Conferences
Weishaupt sees a transparent lesson rising from these shifts: assembly expertise should adapt to human behaviour, not the opposite approach round.
Dependable hybrid techniques, sensible AI instruments, and IT-friendly deployment are not non-obligatory – they’re a baseline requirement for organisations navigating micro-shifting workers.
“One of the best assembly expertise is the sort you barely discover,” he mentioned. “It simply works, day-after-day, for everybody.”
