"Zoom fatigue" refers to a mental overload that reduces productivity. Senior managers believe there is AI in the investment of meetings. The Stanford Virtual Human Interaction AI Lab studied the psychological effects of protracted video conferencing and online meetings in early 2021. Sixty-five percent of 182 senior managers polled at UNC-Chapel Hill said meetings delayed them from finishing their job, while seventy-one percent said most meetings were inefficient and unproductive. Some tech companies now say all our time has been sucked up into the cloud. With the rise of technology-dependent remote employees, new solutions emerge to make in-person and virtual meetings more effective.

Early in 2021, the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab looked at the psychological consequences of spending long days videoconferencing and in virtual meetings. The popularized term "Zoom fatigue," is the result of maxing out cognitive load and even reducing effectiveness. For all of that investment in remote work technology, senior managers feel there is very little payoff. The University of North Carolina surveyed 182 senior managers and 65% of them felt meetings kept them from completing their own work, 71% felt meetings were inefficient and unproductive, and 64% felt meetings undercut deep thinking. As technology-dependent remote workers proliferate, new solutions are coming to the fore that may make both in-person and virtual meetings more productive.