The rise of video conferencing has opened up new ways to analyze the effectiveness of meetings.
Seattle startup Read just released its first study after measuring more than 3 million virtual meeting minutes since launching in September, when it announced its $10 million seed round. The company’s software measures engagement and sentiment of participants on video meetings.
For meetings with seven or more people, some of the findings include:
- 50% of participants arrive late
- 40% have below average or poor engagement
- 22% of participants don’t say a single word
- 11% don’t have video or audio on
Overall, one in five video conference calls had a below average meeting score, and 31% of meetings start late.
“The scale and impact of bad meetings is a massive drain on resources and morale,” said David Shim, CEO of Read.
Shim said with workers going remote amid the pandemic, people erred on the side of inviting more participants, and the default response of those invited was to accept. This is what introduced “Zoom Fatigue,” he said.
That’s part of what Read is trying to address with its products. Read’s software uses AI, computer vision, and natural language processing tech to analyze voice and facial movements. The idea is to give people feedback on how their audience is emotionally responding, whether it’s a sales pitch or a weekly all-hands meeting — like a FitBit that tracks steps, but for virtual meetings instead.
Read aims to answer questions like: Are people engaged? Are they frustrated? Are they feeling productive?
The 20-person company on Tuesday released three new products as part of its “Chief Meeting Officer Suite,” including a “Read Meeting Manager” that delivers post-meeting analytics and “Read Executive Assistant,” a virtual tool that helps make sure meetings end on time and have balanced conversations with real-time talk time metrics.
“Since launching six months ago, the opportunity is significantly larger than we first anticipated, and so is the demand for meeting measurement and optimization,” Shim said.
Read offers a free tier of its software and also has paying enterprise clients.
Shim co-founded Read with Elliott Waldron and Rob Williams; the trio previously built location analytics startup Placed, which was acquired by Snap for more than $200 million in 2017.
Madrona Venture Group led the company’s seed round, which included participation from PSL Ventures and various angel investors such as former Placed board member David Joerg; former Snap exec Imran Khan; AI2 CEO Oren Etzioni; Qumulo CEO Bill Richter; Wunderman CEO Shane Atchison; Divvy founder Brian Ma; and Snap execs Peter Sellis and Nima Khajehnouri.
