State of Meetings 2026

What we've learned from
50 million hours of meetings

Based on an analysis of meetings captured between 2023 and 2025

Introduction

We analyzed data from meetings captured with Supernormal and the Radiant Mac app between 2023 and 2025 to understand how the way we work together is evolving.

This report examines meeting volume, duration, structure, and scheduling patterns—plus early signals from AI-assisted meetings that hint at where things are headed.

Meetings are getting shorter, but not fewer. Average duration dropped from 51 to 47 minutes, while volume held steady.

Friday is fading. Just 16% of meetings now happen on Friday, and that share keeps shrinking.

External collaboration is up. 46% of meetings now include someone outside your company.

1-on-1s are growing. Direct conversations now make up nearly a quarter of all meetings.

AI is shifting meetings from discussion to execution. Early data shows 69% of AI-assisted meetings now generate actionable artifacts, with a median time-to-first-draft of zero minutes.

The scale of modern meetings (2023-2025)

Value: 50.9 million hours

Total meeting hours captured since 2023

Over the past three years, Supernormal's products have captured more than 50 million hours of meetings. Based on average attendee time valued at $48/hour, those meetings represent $17.3B in economic value. How we meet and what we get out of meetings is a major consideration for businesses, and even entire economies.

Value: 50.9 million hours

Total meeting hours captured since 2023

Value: $1 trillion per year

Estimated U.S. economic cost of meetings

American knowledge workers spend an estimated $1 trillion worth of time in meetings each year. See the Methodology section for how we calculated this. That's not inherently a problem—but it raises the question of how much of that time workers should spend in meetings to deliver value.

Value: $1 trillion per year

Estimated U.S. economic cost of meetings

How meeting structure has changed

Shorter meetings

Larger meetings

1-1 meetings

External meetings

Recurring vs. ad hoc

Meetings are getting shorter

Average meeting duration dropped from 51 minutes in 2023 to 47 minutes in 2025. Meanwhile, meetings over 60 minutes have declined from 43% to 37% of total meetings.

Teams are compressing the time they spend together—but not necessarily meeting less often.

How meeting structure has changed

Shorter meetings

Meetings are getting shorter

Average meeting duration dropped from 51 minutes in 2023 to 47 minutes in 2025. Meanwhile, meetings over 60 minutes have declined from 43% to 37% of total meetings.

Teams are compressing the time they spend together—but not necessarily meeting less often.

How meeting structure has changed

Shorter meetings

Meetings are getting shorter

Average meeting duration dropped from 51 minutes in 2023 to 47 minutes in 2025. Meanwhile, meetings over 60 minutes have declined from 43% to 37% of total meetings.

Teams are compressing the time they spend together—but not necessarily meeting less often.

When the world meets

Meetings by day of week

Tuesday remains the most popular meeting day (21% of weekly meetings), followed closely by Monday and Wednesday. Meeting load drops noticeably by Thursday and falls off sharply on Friday.

Meetings by day of week

Tuesday remains the most popular meeting day (21% of weekly meetings), followed closely by Monday and Wednesday. Meeting load drops noticeably by Thursday and falls off sharply on Friday.

Decline of Friday meetings

Friday meetings now account for just 16% of the weekly total. After peaking in 2024, Friday's share has started to slip as teams protect the end of the week for focused work. Whether it's due to hybrid policies, focus time initiatives, or simple preference, Friday is increasingly becoming a meeting-light day.

Decline of Friday meetings

Meetings outside standard business hours

Nearly 30% of meetings occur in the evening (after 6pm UTC), while 12% start before 9am. For globally distributed teams, "business hours" is an increasingly flexible concept.

Meetings outside standard business hours

Nearly 30% of meetings occur in the evening (after 6pm UTC), while 12% start before 9am. For globally distributed teams, "business hours" is an increasingly flexible concept.

Most common meeting hour globally

2pm UTC (9am EST / 6am PST) is the single most popular meeting start time, capturing over 9% of all meetings. The concentration of meetings between 2pm and 5pm UTC reflects the overlap window between European afternoon and North American morning.

Most common meeting hour globally

Fastest-growing meeting names

Which one is the winner?

👑

Standup

2 All Hands / Town Hall

3 1:1

4 Sprint / Agile

5 Interview

6 Which one is the winner?

👑

Standup

2 All Hands / Town Hall

3 1:1

4 Sprint / Agile

5 Interview

6

Which one is the winner?

👑

Standup

2

All Hands / Town Hall

3

1:1

4

Sprint / Agile

5

Interview

6

What meeting names reveal about work

These names represent the core rhythms of how teams work: alignment, updates, and collaborative thinking.

Name

What it signals

Volume

Sync / Check-in

Cross-functional alignment; often recurring

6.2M meetings

Standup

Daily team cadence; large groups, short duration

3.0M meetings

All Hands / Town Hall

Company or org-wide updates

1.3M meetings

1:1

Manager check-ins, mentorship, focused decisions

1.2M meetings

Sprint / Agile

Development ceremonies; planning, retros, grooming

885K meetings

Interview

Hiring and candidate evaluation

661K meetings

Sync/Check-in meetings are the most common type in our dataset, followed by Standups. These two categories alone account for more meetings than all other named types combined

Meeting names signal meeting size

All Hands and Standups consistently draw the largest crowds, often 10+ attendees. These are coordination meetings where alignment happens across teams or the entire company. On the other end, 1-on-1s and Interviews stay lean by design, typically 2–4 people focused on a single relationship or decision.

The pattern is intuitive: the broader the topic, the bigger the room. Standups are the most likely meeting type to exceed 10 attendees (45% of all standups), while 1-on-1s almost never do.

The shift toward intentional meetings

People aren't meeting less, they're meeting smarter

For years, calendars trended in one direction: fuller. In 2024, that started to change. But this isn't a rejection of meetings, it's a sign that teams are getting more deliberate about when a meeting is the right tool.

People aren't meeting less, they're meeting smarter

2024: The peak

Behavior

% of Users

Increased (>5% more meetings)

76%

Decreased (>5% fewer meetings)

21%

Maintained (±5%)

3%

2025: The correction

Behavior

% of Users

Increased (>5% more meetings)

60%

Decreased (>5% fewer meetings)

34%

Maintained (±5%)

5%

What's driving the shift?

It's not that meetings stopped being valuable, it's that people are choosing them more carefully. Hybrid policies have matured. Async-first cultures are taking hold. And teams are learning to ask "does this need a meeting?" before defaulting to one.

The meetings that remain are the ones that matter.

What's driving the shift?

The meetings that remain are the ones that matter.

What's driving the shift?

The meetings that remain are the ones that matter.

AI-assisted meetings

Growth of AI-assisted meetings

AI-powered meeting tools went from novelty to necessity between 2023 and 2025. What started as transcription has evolved into summarization, action-item extraction, and now automated follow-through.

Growth of AI-assisted meetings

AI-powered meeting tools went from novelty to necessity between 2023 and 2025. What started as transcription has evolved into summarization, action-item extraction, and now automated follow-through.

AI in meetings

AI notetakers are now present in a significant share of professional meetings. For many teams, the question has shifted from "should we use AI?" to "how do we use it well?"

AI in meetings

AI notetakers are now present in a significant share of professional meetings. For many teams, the question has shifted from "should we use AI?" to "how do we use it well?"

Next-step trends

The next wave of AI meeting tools isn't just about capturing what happened, but acting on it. Drafting follow-up emails, scheduling next steps, and pushing action items to project management tools are all emerging behaviors.

Next-step trends

AI-driven meeting changes

When AI handles documentation, the meeting itself can change. Early signals suggest that AI-assisted meetings may trend shorter and more action-oriented, since less time is spent on manual note-taking and recap.

AI-driven meeting changes

Early signals from Radiant (July-Nov 2025)

In mid-2025, early usage patterns began to show how meetings might evolve beyond documentation and toward execution. When we talk about 'artifacts' in this report we mean any work output that AI generates from a meeting.

Meeting → Artifact metrics

Artifact types

Adoption and workflow behavior

Notes

What this means for meetings in 2026

Learn more about Radiant

1

Meetings likely stabilize rather than grow

After years of steady growth, meeting volume is plateauing. Teams have hit a ceiling, and are now optimizing rather than adding.

2

Meetings continue to get shorter and more outcome-focused

The 60-minute default is fading. Expect more 25- and 45-minute meetings designed around specific decisions or outputs.

3

External collaboration keeps rising

Nearly half of all meetings already involve external participants. That share will only grow as partnerships, vendor relationships, and distributed work become the norm.

4

Fewer follow-up syncs

When AI can summarize, draft, and distribute next steps instantly, the "let's schedule a follow-up to align" meeting becomes less necessary.

5

AI execution becomes expected, not novel

By the end of 2026, AI-generated meeting artifacts will feel as normal as calendar invites. The question will shift from "Do you use AI?" to "What do you do with it?"

Methodology

Data sources

Time period covered

Known anomalies and exclusions

Radiant data window disclaimer

Report resources

How to cite this report

Radiant. "State of Meetings 2026: What We've Learned from 50 Million Hours of Meetings." Radiant, January 2026. https://radiantapp.com/state-of-meetings

Press contact

[email protected]

Brand assets

Radiant Brand Assets

Supernormal Brand Assets

What we've learned from 50 million hours of meetings

What we've learned from 50 million hours of meetings

Introduction

The scale of modern meetings (2023-2025)

The scale of modern meetings (2023-2025)

Total meeting hours captured since 2023

Total meeting hours captured since 2023

Estimated U.S. economic cost of meetings

Estimated U.S. economic cost of meetings

How meeting structure has changed

Meetings are getting shorter

How meeting structure has changed

Shorter meetings

Meetings are getting shorter

How meeting structure has changed

Shorter meetings

Meetings are getting shorter

When the world meets

When the world meets

Meetings by day of week

Meetings by day of week

Decline of Friday meetings

Decline of Friday meetings

Meetings outside standard business hours

Meetings outside standard business hours

Most common meeting hour globally

Most common meeting hour globally

Fastest-growing meeting names

Which one is the winner?

Standup

2

All Hands / Town Hall

3

1:1

4

Sprint / Agile

5

Interview

6

Which one is the winner?

Standup

2

All Hands / Town Hall

3

1:1

4

Sprint / Agile

5

Interview

6

Which one is the winner?

Standup

2

All Hands / Town Hall

3

1:1

4

Sprint / Agile

5

Interview

6

What meeting names reveal about work

What meeting names reveal about work

Name

What it signals

Volume

Sync / Check-in

Cross-functional alignment; often recurring

6.2M meetings

Standup

Daily team cadence; large groups, short duration

3.0M meetings

All Hands / Town Hall

Company or org-wide updates

1.3M meetings

1:1

Manager check-ins, mentorship, focused decisions

1.2M meetings

Sprint / Agile

Development ceremonies; planning, retros, grooming

What we've learned from
50 million hours of meetings

What we've learned from
50 million hours of meetings