What is the Future of Small Business Collaboration?

BIZTECH: What do you see as the future of collaboration for small businesses?

Kwon: For small-business owners, whose time is their most finite resource, the future of collaboration is about restoring focus by removing complexity. Instead of simply connecting people through technology, collaboration solutions will become a true partner to small-business owners and their teams; think fewer clicks and more connectivity. This kind of workspace holds a deep understanding of a team’s context so it can surface the information team members need, when they need it, making collaboration more seamless.

Kjesbu: The future of collaboration is what we call “distance zero.” The goal is to truly eliminate the impact of physical distance. What we mean by that is, regardless of where you sit, even a small business can hire the best talent from wherever and ensure that everyone is on equal footing, whether they’re joining a meeting from a home office, the office a coffee shop or anywhere in between.

Distance zero means really tearing down the barriers between remote people and those in the office to ensure that everyone has an equal seat at the table. That’s our vision. We’re making it real with innovations like multiple in-room cameras to deliver cinematic meeting experiences and collaboration devices designed for workspaces of all sizes. And it’s all happening with AI at the edge.

Merrow: The way small and midsize businesses operate has significantly evolved in recent years, and the rate of change is only increasing. To stay competitive and responsive, they need solutions that are flexible, intuitive and built for wherever work happens, whether in-person, remote or hybrid. Today’s workforce is becoming more distributed, dynamic and digitally reliant than ever, but many organizations are making collaboration worse by using disjointed tools that create friction.  >What role will AI play in helping remote teams be more unified?

BIZTECH: What role will AI play in helping remote teams be more unified?

Kwon: AI will elevate remote collaboration from functional to truly cohesive. Beyond automating tasks, AI will help teams cultivate understanding and keep them in sync. For example, AI-powered notes and meeting summaries will solve the common post-call paralysis, where coworkers ask each other, “So, what are the action items?” AI will unlock a deep level of intelligence, where insights and context are seamlessly provided, allowing teams to work more effectively.

Merrow: AI is designed to relieve complexity by integrating seamlessly into collaboration tools. For example, Zoom AI Companion is embedded throughout the platform, offering real-time support that helps identify and complete tasks, summarize content, suggest next steps and reduce repetitive work.

Kjesbu: We don’t have a single meeting at Cisco now without our AI assistant activated, because it takes the busywork out of every meeting. The meeting is transcribed, the notes are taken, the actions items are captured. If you’re late joining a meeting, you’re instantly caught up. If you can’t attend a meeting, you’ll get a summary and all the action items.

One thing we are working on now is automatic meeting schedules. If you and I are talking about a problem and we say, “It would be so good to discuss this with someone else as well,” an AI agent will actually go and find time when the three of us are available, and we’ll get a meeting invitation that we can accept.

BIZTECH: What unique challenges do small businesses face in unifying teams?

Merrow: If you own or manage a small business, chances are you and your team wear a lot of hats. Time and resources are luxuries you don’t always have, making it hard to feel productive some days. Running a small business means dealing with unique challenges, like executing multiple processes with just a few people and a limited budget.

A common challenge small businesses face is tool sprawl, which leads to inefficiencies and fragmented team interactions.

Finally, fostering a sense of belonging and engagement is harder with lean teams, especially when employees work remotely and miss out on the informal connections that occur in physical offices. These constraints make it critical for small businesses to adopt solutions that are cost-effective, easy to manage and integrative. SMB teams need technology that helps them do more but doesn’t add to the to-do list or increase complexity.

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Kjesbu: Even in smaller organizations, you will work with teams spread across multiple locations and geographies. Your partners, customers and suppliers will all be scattered. That’s why collaboration tools are essential for any organization, whether small or large. In any organization, success is driven by creativity, innovation, culture building and people development. You need tools that enable these things to flourish, regardless of the physical distance between people.

In a small company, you want to recreate a “virtual garage” feeling. Back when everyone at a startup worked together in the same garage, collaboration was seamless and spontaneous. The challenge is, how do you mimic that environment as teams grow and spread out? You need that same sense of immediacy and agility, and achieving it requires robust collaboration tools that keep everyone seamlessly connected without friction.

Kwon: Over 33 million U.S. businesses are small businesses, and the challenges they face are not uncommon compared with larger organizations; think scaling, managing time with limited resources, collaborating across distributed teams and more.

For small businesses with remote and distributed teams, seamless collaboration is essential to unify teams and ensure people do not end up working in silos, duplicating efforts or feeling disconnected from the bigger picture.

The challenge isn’t just staying connected, it’s staying coordinated, agile and focused. Unifying a team, and integrating the right tools to do so, means ensuring everyone moves in the same direction with shared purpose, even if they’re miles apart.

BIZTECH: How will technology address those issues going forward? How much better will it get?

Kjesbu: One way we are looking at this is by finding new ways to blend people and objects within digital environments. For example, we’ve partnered with Apple and the Apple Vision Pro, the company’s first spatial virtual reality device, to deliver a truly immersive, stereoscopic experience. The technology enables people, no matter where they are, to view and interact with objects in three dimensions, with true color and high resolution. The result? Faster product development, more efficient design and production, and the ability to educate users on new products, even if they’re located in another country. It’s a massive opportunity for innovation and efficiency.

We launched Apple Vision Pro and stereoscopic meetings back in October 2024, and it was made generally available this spring. This is the first step. The capabilities will continue to evolve, bringing continued seamless, real-time collaboration and interaction, regardless of physical distance.

Merrow: Small businesses must focus on removing friction, streamlining workflows and adapting to their customers’ evolving needs in order to survive. The focus will be on creating equitable collaboration experiences that are simple, cost-efficient and scalable for growing teams. AI capabilities can greatly assist with the unique challenges small businesses face.

Kwon: Technology has proved to be incredibly capable in solving these pain points. AI-powered tools, in particular, offer capabilities that go far beyond what’s possible in a shared workspace. Automated meeting recordings, transcripts and notes help teams move faster and stay aligned. This isn’t just a glimpse of the future; it’s already part of how small businesses work every day.

We’re seeing small businesses of all kinds embrace AI to reduce busywork, streamline tasks, surface insights and ultimately make them more efficient. Businesses are already experiencing remarkable benefits from AI, and with the technology evolving so rapidly, those advantages are set to grow quickly.