‘The trick is finding that balance,’ says expert about evaluating the necessity of meetings – but AI tools can help assess, streamline meetings
Instagram head Adam Mosseri took aim at overbearing meeting culture and bureaucracy recently. In a memo to employees released online, he announced changes that include cancelling redundant, recurring meetings and encouraging staff to decline invites that interfere with focused work.
According to Ivona Hideg, associate professor of organizational behaviour at York University, while the volume of meetings has clearly become a concern for employers and business leaders, research points to important benefits when meetings are used well.
“Some meetings are necessary, and they help in terms of building a culture, in terms of making people feel they belong,” Hideg says.
“The trick is finding that balance.”
Balancing belonging and overload in meeting culture
Mosseri’s memo announced that starting in February 2026, recurring meetings at Instagram will be cancelled every six months and only readded if they are “absolutely necessary,” with one-on-one meetings moved to a biweekly default.
While meetings can create shared goals and participation in decision-making, Hideg agrees that at a certain point, both the number and quality of meetings can start to work against those positive effects.
For employers considering blanket cuts or automatic cancellations such as Mosseri’s approach, the goal should not just be fewer meetings, she says, but finding the right mix to support both performance and inclusion; this means employees should be included in conversations about meeting culture. Teams with high interdependence and complex collaboration needs may require more structured meeting frameworks, while others may function better with shorter, less frequent meetings.
Hideg recommends involving employees directly in deciding what meetings are needed and which can move to other channels.
“You need to understand who your workers are,” she says.
“There is not one prescribed approach to every situation, every company. And there is research showing that bigger companies tend to have more meetings than smaller companies.”
Beyond how many meetings to hold, Hideg points to the importance of protected time for concentrated work.
“I do think those make us more productive,” she says. “There is research showing that having more protected time and time to think actually boosts employees’ morale and boosts psychological well-being.”
HR technology: using AI to map meeting time
Moving beyond the human side of meeting culture, Zach Giglio, CEO of AI transformation company GCM and AI committee member for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, explains how employers can use data and AI tools to improve meeting practices.
As an example, he describes how structured data – such as calendar exports – can be combined with meeting transcripts for valuable knowledge insights, using “foundational” AI programs such as Copilot or Chat GPT.
“Out of these 10 meetings that we have on a monthly basis, which ones should we still be keeping?” Giglio says.
“Where are we getting some really good insights or creating some synergies, and which ones are just, kind of, people updating?”
By feeding internal calendar data and transcripts into an AI system, organizations can identify meetings that seem primarily informational and might be better handled through asynchronous channels, he says. They can also be used to assess participation patterns within recurring meetings.
“You can put that into AI and start identifying who's dominating meetings … the same one or two people are taking up about 80% of the airtime,” Giglio says.
“Those are probably good indications that we don't really need to have a meeting if most people aren't really contributing. And also you maybe can guide some HR policy internally about how to better conduct meetings so that more people are able to get involved and contribute.”
AI, HR expertise and employee trust
Giglio underscores the need to keep HR professionals and experienced people leaders involved when AI is used to assess meeting participation, workloads or potential policy changes.
He reminds employers that human judgment is still essential to interpret what AI produces or recommends: “If you have someone who doesn't have HR experience using AI to conduct insights and to take action upon those insights in an HR setting … that's very problematic, because there's going to be a lot of blind spots.”
Giglio also recommends clear communication when AI tools are used to review meetings – such as a policy outlining the reason for the technology, what will be done with the data, and how the practice will benefit employees.
He adds that communication should allow for questions and concerns, “being open and transparent and also providing a two-way conversation where people who have more concerns and questions … have an opportunity to voice that and get those questions answered.”
