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Remember when team building meant awkward icebreakers and group photos nobody ever looked at? Those days are gone!
As teams scatter across time zones and kitchen tables, we have to rethink how we actually connect with each other. New tech like artificial intelligence (AI) is showing up to help, but not in the cold, robotic way you might expect.
In this article, we'll cover the use of new technologies, such as AI, for team building. Read on to learn how these could improve your employee engagement and foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Remember, micro-moments shape macro-culture in your organization!
📆 The Current State of Team Building
Traditional team building had its moments. Group problem-solving exercises were fun, and off-sites got people talking. But they were band-aids on bigger problems: How do we give feedback that doesn't sting? How do we run meetings where everyone actually speaks up? Who gets heard and who gets ignored?'
Remote work turned these cracks into canyons. Some people love it, while others feel like they're working in a void. That's why it's crucial to lead hybrid and remote teams with a different approach. And that practically applies to team-building initiatives!
Learn from Jeffrey Zhou, CEO and Founder of Fig Loans. He has his fair share of experience working with remote teams, especially during the pandemic. He suggests leveraging modern technology for any team-building activity.
Zhou says, "Pizza parties and trust falls worked great in 1995, but today's distributed teams need something fundamentally different. Our employee engagement scores jumped 40% when we shifted from quarterly off-sites to continuous, tech-enabled connection points throughout the workweek."
That's the key right there: People want a connection that fits into their actual workday, not forced fun on their calendar.
The data backs this up, too. Remote and hybrid work have settled in since 2021, and most people want to keep their flexibility. In fact, over 28% of employees prefer to work from home five days a week. However, more than 60% of workers have already gone back to the office.
So, how do you initiate team building amid the rise of remote working? Tech is key!
🧑💻 The Use of New Technology (like AI) for Team Building
AI is getting into everything at work now, from sorting your emails to transcribing your meetings. But here's what's interesting: instead of making things more robotic, good AI is actually helping teams feel more human. It watches how you work together and suggests little changes that make a big difference.
That said, here's how to use new tech for your team building:
- Personalization that actually works: AI figures out that Sarah hates morning meetings, and Tom needs time to process before brainstorming. Then it suggests meeting times and formats that work for everyone. In fact, leaders want AI to free up time for real work, not just automate everything.
- Feedback that doesn't wait for annual reviews: Digital tools can spot when someone's dominating conversations or when workload is getting lopsided. As a leader, you can review these insights, analyze the feedback, and address problems while they're still small.
- Making distance disappear: Virtual reality (VR) meetings aren't just sci-fi anymore. Companies are using Meta Horizon Workrooms and Microsoft Mesh to create shared spaces that feel real. Even regular tools like Zoom and Miro are adding AI features to make collaboration smoother.
Andy Wang, Marketing Manager at Skywork AI, recommends harnessing the AI power for team interactions. Their company offers AI tools to enhance employee engagement in business settings.
Wang explains, "AI analyzes thousands of micro-interactions to understand how each person best contributes to their team. It then suggests optimal collaboration patterns, meeting formats, and even the best times for brainstorming sessions. We're seeing teams achieve in weeks what used to take months of trial and error."
🚨Impact of New Tech on Team Dynamics
With the rise of remote work and rapid advancement of technology, team building offers a new twist. Gone are the days when you'd have to hold an after-hours get together that everyone dreaded and provide your team with a personalized t-shirt they’ll never wear again. Today, you have to leverage new tech like AI to create positive team dynamics in your day-to-day operations.
Yes, team building doesn't have to go beyond your office's four walls. It can be held through a virtual office during your working hours. However, tech is required!
Here's how new technology can significantly impact your team interactions:
How AI improves employee engagement 👪
Let's talk about how teams actually talk to each other. Because that's where culture lives or dies. The good news? There are practical ways AI can support your team building. That said, here's how it's changing three big things:
- Meetings are getting smarter. AI can take notes, track action items, and even flag when Bob’s been talking for 20 minutes straight. With less time spent managing logistics, teams have more time to focus on meaningful work—and on building real connections with each other. In fact, the AI-powered meeting assistants market is projected to grow from $3.14 billion in 2025 to $7.52 billion by 2029 at a 24% CAGR.
- Second, we're getting smarter about who does what. Some people are idea machines. Others are the ones who turn chaos into plans. AI helps spot these patterns so managers can build teams that actually complement each other. That way, they have extra time to bond with each other through team building.
- Third, problems get caught early. When the system notices tension building in Slack threads or emails getting terse, it can nudge managers to check in before things explode. Ultimately, AI helps keep team collaboration and employee engagement as smooth as possible.
Take it from Ryan Beattie, Director of Business Development at UK SARMs. He highlighted how AI helped improve their team interactions.
Beattie shares, "Real-time sentiment analysis transformed how our managers support their teams. When the system detects frustration patterns in Slack conversations or email threads, it prompts managers to check in before small issues become major conflicts. This proactive approach reduced our turnover by 35% in just one year."
How new tech fosters DEI 🧑🎤
Pew Research Center surveyed nearly 6,000 Americans on DEI initiatives. More than 55% of employees consider DEI a good thing in the workplace. While almost 30% believe it's neither good nor bad, over 15% say it's a bad thing.
Enter new technology. Good teams don't just tolerate differences; They need them. Technology is finally making this easier to achieve. Here's how tech helps foster DEI:
- Diversity: AI helps expand the talent pool by reducing traditional barriers to entry. Its algorithms can source talent from diverse backgrounds, geographies, and experiences. This ensures your team can include a wider range of perspectives…something that directly fuels creativity and innovation!
- Equity: There's also progress on fair hiring and promotions. When used right, AI focuses on actual skills instead of where someone went to school or who they know. Of course, you need safeguards. While the NIST has guidelines, the EEOC has rules on avoiding algorithmic bias.
- Inclusion: Consider designing truly inclusive events. Take meetings, for instance. AI tracks who's talking and who's not. It can suggest rotating who leads discussions. Live captions and translations mean language barriers disappear. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet now all have these features built in.
Anna Zhang, Head of Marketing at U7BUY, suggests leveraging AI to promote DEI as part of your team-building efforts. Working with various stakeholders worldwide, she emphasizes the value of utilizing new technology.
Zhang cites, "AI helps us spot inclusion gaps that human observation often misses. Our platform tracks speaking time in meetings, ensures diverse voices contribute to decisions, and automatically translates content into 47 languages. Every team member can now participate fully, regardless of their location or primary language."
📣 Future Trends in Tech-driven Team Building
For team building, it's crucial to know what employees really want from company events and activities. Then, you can take advantage of your tools and technologies to make your team building work. So, what can we expect in terms of tech-driven team building?
Okay, crystal ball time—Here's what's coming by 2026:
- AI becomes your meeting buddy. It'll design agendas, keep discussions on track, even suggest when to take a break because energy's flagging.
- Virtual offices will stick around. Virtual offices are here to stay. We’re not just talking about video calls, but immersive spaces where your avatar can bump into teammates, grab a virtual coffee, or spark a hallway chat. As flexible work becomes the norm—over a quarter of workers now follow flexible setups—these digital spaces will play a key role in keeping connection and culture alive.
- Smart teams assemble together. The system knows who works well together, who has bandwidth, whose skills match the project. It suggests teams like a really good matchmaker.
- Privacy becomes everything. All this tracking and analysis only works if people trust it. Companies will need clear rules about data use, strong security, and most importantly, the ability to opt out. GDPR-style protections will be table stakes.
- Humans still make the big decisions. Sometimes the best move is to turn off all the tech and just have a conversation.
By 2026, we'll see AI facilitators running most team meetings, VR spaces replacing physical offices for collaboration, and predictive algorithms assembling project teams based on complementary skills and work styles. Companies that invest in these capabilities now will have a massive competitive advantage.
Final Note
Team building isn't an event anymore. It's what happens every day in every interaction. New technology, like AI, won't replace the messy yet beautiful work of building relationships. However, they can make it easier to include everyone, spot problems early, and create moments of genuine connection, regardless of where people work.
Companies starting now will have teams in 2026 that actually like working together. That's not just nice to have; That's the whole ballgame! If you want ready-made experiences, check out Confetti's virtual team building options. They've got everything from games to workshops designed for distributed teams. To get started, book a demo today!
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