Zoom solved a crisis. Mixed reality (MR) is solving what came after.
Remote work proved that knowledge work doesn’t require shared offices — but it also exposed the limits of flat collaboration. Video calls compress people, ideas, and artifacts into tiny rectangles. Whiteboards become screenshares. Presence becomes performative. Real collaboration often happens around the call, not inside it.
Mixed reality collaboration points to what’s next: shared workspaces that restore context, spatial awareness, and a sense of “working together,” even when teams are apart.
Why Video Calls Hit a Ceiling
Video conferencing is optimized for communication, not collaboration.
Its constraints are subtle but costly:
- Everyone shares the same fixed viewpoint
- Only one person can “own” the screen at a time
- Spatial relationships between ideas are lost
- Side conversations, gestures, and body language disappear
- Fatigue increases as attention is forced into a grid
Zoom works for updates and discussions. It struggles with design, planning, problem-solving, and sensemaking — the kinds of work that benefit from shared space.
Mixed Reality Brings Back the Room
Mixed reality collaboration reintroduces something remote work lost: the room itself.
In MR environments, teams can:
- Gather around shared 3D models, documents, or data
- Place ideas spatially instead of linearly
- Point, gesture, and move naturally
- Maintain spatial memory of decisions and artifacts
- Work in parallel instead of taking turns
Instead of asking “Can you see my screen?”, the question becomes “Come stand over here.”
That shift sounds small. It’s not.
Presence Changes How Teams Think
Presence isn’t about realism — it’s about shared reference.
When people feel co-present:
- Conversations flow more naturally
- Interruptions feel less awkward
- Attention is easier to read
- Collaboration becomes less exhausting
Mixed reality doesn’t need photoreal avatars to work. Even abstract representations can restore presence if spatial cues are consistent and interaction feels immediate.
The result is collaboration that feels closer to being together — without pretending it’s the same.
From Meetings to Working Sessions
One of the biggest changes MR enables is a shift from meetings to working sessions.
In mixed reality:
- Work artifacts persist after people leave
- Teams can drop in and out asynchronously
- Progress is visible spatially, not buried in notes
- Collaboration becomes continuous, not calendar-bound
This is especially powerful for distributed teams across time zones. The workspace becomes the constant — people rotate through it.
Where Mixed Reality Collaboration Makes Sense First
MR won’t replace every meeting. It shines where complexity and shared understanding matter most:
- Product design and engineering reviews
- Architecture, construction, and urban planning
- Data analysis and scenario planning
- Training and simulation
- Strategy workshops and retrospectives
These are situations where spatial relationships are the work.
It’s Not About Headsets (Again)
As with most spatial technologies, the hardware gets too much attention.
Yes, headsets enable deeper immersion. But mixed reality collaboration is already happening across:
- Desktops with spatial interfaces
- Tablets and phones as windows into shared spaces
- AR devices for contextual overlays
- VR for fully shared environments
The real innovation isn’t the device — it’s the shared spatial model underneath.
New Norms, New Etiquette
MR collaboration will force teams to invent new social norms:
- When is it okay to move someone’s work?
- How do you signal focus or availability?
- What does “leaving the room” mean?
- How is privacy respected in shared spaces?
These questions mirror the early days of open offices and Slack. The tools will evolve, but culture will matter more than features.
The Post-Zoom Mindset Shift
Zoom normalized remote presence.
Mixed reality is normalizing remote togetherness.
The future of work isn’t about recreating offices in 3D or holding meetings with avatars. It’s about designing shared environments where thinking, building, and deciding happen more naturally than they do on a call.
Screens helped us stay connected.
Spaces will help us move forward.