The communication and collaboration (C&C) market will be worth $309 billion by 2025, driven largely by hybrid work and AI.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled a massive change in the workplace as companies the world over sent their employees home to work remotely. Despite multiple attempts to return to the office, many companies have ended up postponing a return indefinitely as new COVID variants have risen.

The shift to remote work has had a transformative impact on the C&C market, making platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others indispensable tools.

According to GlobalData, that trend will continue, with communications platforms experiencing the highest growth rate, a CAGR of 15% between 2020 and 2025. Enterprise social networking and collaboration will grow at a CAGR of 14%.

“Competition is raging in the communications platforms segment, which is already the fastest growing part of the C&C market, with many companies — from big tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Cisco to cloud-native providers such as Zoom, RingCentral and Salesforce — all battling for dominance,” says Laura Petrone, Principal Analyst in Thematic Research at GlobalData.

“The pandemic has made competition in the C&C market even fiercer,” Petrone continues. “Today, as we shift to a hybrid model of working, vendors are rushing to provide the appropriate collaboration tools to enable staff to work from their chosen location. Those companies operating in the C&C market who are building their artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) capabilities will be the most successful, as such technologies will be critical in the emerging hybrid workplace.

“Augmented versions of collaboration tools, where people can display digital files and whiteboards inside the virtual space, are increasingly becoming commonplace. The likes of Meta and Microsoft are also championing the metaverse as the ideal environment to support hybrid working. However, the metaverse space will likely be exposed to potential data privacy violations, as it will involve processing a significant amount of personal data, including biometrics. Also, it remains to be seen whether office workers, many of whom are already struggling with Zoom fatigue, will find it appealing to interact with digital avatars in the corporate metaverse.”