Gen Z says "WTF" as it struggles with webcam woes and meeting tech fails, new survey finds

“How many times have you heard ‘Can you hear me?’ at the start of a meeting?”

According to a new Owl Labs survey, those familiar tech hiccups are adding up – costing workers an average of 6.5 minutes per meeting across major global markets (The survey took place in the US, the UK, Germany & France.)

Moreover, the company goes on to point out that it isn't just the old and easily confused suffering this kind of delay – which the company has dubbed a Workplace Tech Frustration for, no doubt, its amusing

Interestingly, it isn't just the usual suspects who are being delayed by tricky webcams in meeting rooms. Technical difficulties are even more frequent for younger workers, with 82% of Gen Z and 79% of Millennials reporting time lost to tech issues – higher than the 73% of Gen X and 72% of Boomers.

At this point it's fair to remind readers that Owl Labs are not exactly impartial in all this; the company created the Meeting Owl and its assorted sequels, conference room webcams which can be placed at the center of a meeting table and see in any direction.

An AI tech is used to identify who is speaking and make them the subject of the video feed that is sent from the room automatically.

Owl Labs also highlight that the rather vague "technical difficulties" account for 79% of reported issues, while audio echo or distortion is reported by 78%, the result being that 74% feel they have missed visual cues.

Whether this should matter to employers or not rests more on the risk to their staff, and incredibly 93% of employees said they would take some form of action if they no longer had access to hybrid working. That despite the fact that most had systems they found problematic. (Tech, in general, was the second most ranked factor at work after salary, at 89% to 92%.)

So "Organizations are investing heavily in AI and meeting technology, but the real value comes when those tools are intuitive, inclusive and trusted" said Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt

Can we at Digital Camera World vouch for the latest model? No. I've personally tested the Owl Labs Meeting Owl 3 but we have not tested the most recent model.

There are alternatives, of course. You can check our guide to the best conference room webcam.