How ByteDance Made Hybrid Meetings More Inclusive Across Global Teams

Helping every voice stay in the conversation

Customer: ByteDance
Industry: Technology
Solution: Nearity A20S Conference Speakerphone
Use cases: Product reviews, engineering discussions, hybrid meetings

When Everyone Needs to Be Heard

For global technology teams, important decisions rarely happen in one room.

A product manager may be in Shenzhen. An engineer may be joining from Singapore. Another team member may be working remotely from London.

Everyone can see the same screen. But that doesn’t always mean everyone can join the conversation equally.

As hybrid meetings became part of everyday work at ByteDance, audio became an increasingly important part of the collaboration experience.

Because if people can’t be heard, they can’t fully participate.

The Problem Wasn’t Participation. It Was the Meeting Room.

Consider a typical product review meeting.

The discussion is moving quickly. A product manager presents a new feature. An engineer responds. Someone joining remotely asks a question.

Then someone speaks from the far side of the room.

A remote participant can’t hear clearly.

“Could you repeat that?”

The speaker repeats the comment. The meeting moves on.

It sounds like a small problem. But when it happens repeatedly, people start adapting their behavior. Remote participants may wait for the right moment to speak — or simply decide not to interrupt.

For ByteDance’s workplace and IT teams, this raised a bigger question:

How do you create a meeting experience where location doesn’t determine whose voice gets heard?

Three Things Had to Change

The team was looking for a meeting audio solution that could address three practical challenges.

More consistent audio

Different rooms had different setups, which meant different meeting experiences.

Less background noise

Open office environments are rarely quiet. HVAC systems, keyboards, and nearby conversations can all compete with people’s voices.

Simpler deployment

IT and workplace teams needed a solution that could be deployed across different rooms without adding unnecessary complexity.

The goal wasn’t to add more technology.

It was to make meeting technology easier to manage — and easier to forget about.

A20S: Designed Around the Conversation

Nearity A20S became part of that approach, combining 360° pickup, an 8-microphone array, and AI-powered audio processing in a plug-and-play conference speakerphone.

Hear the People, Not the Background

A20S is designed to capture voices around the meeting table while reducing unwanted background noise.

That means participants don’t have to constantly think about microphone position or whether someone sitting farther away can be heard.

They can simply talk.

Give Every Seat a Voice

With 360° pickup, people can speak from different positions around the table without leaning toward a microphone.

For hybrid meetings, that small change matters.

The meeting should follow the conversation — not the microphone.

Scale With the Room

Not every meeting happens in the same space.

A20S can be used as a single device in smaller rooms and connected through Daisy Chain in larger spaces.

That gives workplace and IT teams a more consistent way to approach different room sizes.

From Pilot to a Repeatable Deployment

Enterprise deployment is rarely a one-and-done exercise.

ByteDance’s approach started with selected meeting rooms and focused on real-world use rather than specifications alone.

Phase 1 — Pilot

Selected rooms were equipped with A20S.

Teams evaluated:

• Audio clarity
• User experience
• Ease of deployment
• Compatibility with existing meeting platforms

The key question was simple:

Would employees actually find it easier to use?

Phase 2 — Learn

Feedback from real meetings helped the team understand how A20S performed across different room sizes and collaboration scenarios.

The focus shifted from:

“Does it work?”

to:

“Can we repeat this?”

Phase 3 — Expand

After validation, the deployment approach could be extended to additional meeting spaces.

Instead of designing every room from scratch, teams could use a more consistent framework for deciding how meeting audio should be deployed.

That made scaling much easier to manage.

What Changed?

The biggest improvement wasn’t another feature on a specification sheet.

It was a smoother meeting experience.

Fewer interruptions

Clearer conversations meant less time spent asking people to repeat themselves.

More natural participation

Remote employees could join discussions without constantly thinking about whether their voices would carry.

Less room-by-room complexity

A more standardized approach gave IT and workplace teams a simpler way to equip different meeting spaces.

More flexibility

The same solution could adapt from smaller huddle rooms to larger conference spaces.

When Technology Gets Out of the Way

A good hybrid meeting shouldn’t feel like a technology demo.

A product manager should be able to ask a question.

An engineer should be able to jump in.

A colleague thousands of miles away should be able to disagree — without first asking, “Can you hear me?”

That’s the real goal of better meeting technology:

Not better technology for its own sake. A better conversation.

Customer Perspective

“The goal is not simply to have better meeting equipment. It’s to make sure people can focus on the discussion instead of the technology.”

— Workplace / IT Team

Key Takeaways

With Nearity A20S, ByteDance moved toward a more consistent and scalable approach to hybrid collaboration.

For employees:

• More natural conversations
• Fewer audio-related interruptions
• More opportunities to participate

For IT and workplace teams:

• Simpler deployment
• More consistent meeting room experiences
• Flexible coverage for different spaces

When everyone can hear — and everyone can be heard — teams can focus on what matters:

the conversation.

Nearity A20S

Professional audio for more natural hybrid collaboration