Our perspective on Gartner® How Digital Workplace Leaders Can Optimize Workplace Experience and what it means for hybrid strategy.
Hybrid work didn’t just change where people work, it changed how they use the office.
Across industries, organizations are seeing the same pattern: offices are open, policies exist, tools are in place… and yet space still feels misaligned to real employee needs. Some areas sit empty. Others are overloaded. Teams struggle to coordinate. Employees spend too much time figuring out the basics instead of doing meaningful work.
Gartner® captures this challenge clearly in its research: hybrid work has created staggered workforces, mismanaged schedules, underutilized office space, and workplace experience must evolve to keep up.
This report is a practical guide for digital workplace leaders who want to optimize workplace experience, improve space outcomes, and create a workplace employees want to use.
The real reason offices are underutilized
When employees aren’t coming in consistently, or when collaboration spaces are booked while desks sit empty, it usually points to one thing: the workplace isn’t supporting how people actually work.
Gartner® notes that employees prefer spending less time in the office than they did just two years ago (29% in 2024, down from 36% in 2022).
That doesn’t mean the office has no role, it means the value of the office must be intentional.
Hybrid workplaces need to be designed around purpose.
Why understanding employee behavior matters
One of Gartner’s strongest recommendations is simple, but often overlooked.
Start by understanding what motivates employees to come to the office.
The report recommends a multipronged approach to get that insight, including:
Employee surveys and voice-of-employee feedback
Data-driven analysis of digital experience tools
Multidisciplinary fusion teams across IT, HR, CRE, and security
AI and predictive analytics
This matters because hybrid behavior isn’t random. It’s shaped by whether:
teams can coordinate onsite time
spaces support different work modes
the office is easy to navigate and use
technology reduces friction or adds it
The role of AI and predictive analytics in workplace decisions
Gartner highlights the growing role of AI in predicting employee behavior and improving workplace planning.
AI and generative AI can analyze large datasets from surveys, application usage, and sensor data to predict trends in attendance and engagement.
It can also help identify what types of amenities or collaborative spaces drive higher motivation to come onsite.
This is a big shift for workplace leaders.
Instead of managing space reactively, based on complaints, anecdotes, or lagging metrics, leaders can start planning proactively:
which spaces should expand
which zones should be reconfigured
which days need collaboration capacity
which buildings are underperforming
where investments will change outcomes
Gartner even suggests measuring outcomes using “return on the employee” (ROE), not only traditional ROI.
Why fragmented tools block progress
They built them over time: a desk booking tool here, a visitor system there, a separate wayfinding app, a help desk workflow, a dashboard, a sensor system, and then more tools layered on top.
Gartner’s report reinforces the need for digital workplace leaders to shortlist workplace experience applications based on capabilities like:
space booking
integrations
way finding
space planning
visitor management
amenities and services
virtual assistance
And Gartner’s vendor evaluation guidance emphasizes solutions that integrate with corporate suites, provide real-time analytics, and support both employee and administrator experiences.
This is where many organizations get stuck:
They may have tools but they don’t have a unified experience layer.
And without that layer, it’s hard to:
make the office easier to use
connect workplace workflows across systems
produce reliable utilization insight
deliver consistent experiences across locations
The progression reflects our roadmap: continuously pushing the boundaries of AI to create a smarter, more human-centered workplace experience.
How CXAI aligns to Gartner’s framework
Gartner makes one point repeatedly: workplace experience is not owned by one team.
It requires coordination across workplace, IT, HR, corporate real estate, and business stakeholders - and Gartner recommends formalizing this through a workplace experience steering committee.
At CXAI, we built our platform around this reality.
CXAI helps organizations:
unify workplace tools into a single employee experience layer
enable booking, navigation, and visitor flows
deliver real-time utilization analytics for CRE and facilities
support workplace communications and services
connect workplace experience to measurable outcomesAt CXAI, we built our platform around this reality.
Most importantly, CXAI helps workplace leaders move from experimentation to execution with the data and visibility needed to make smarter decisions across people, space, and technology.
The takeaway: workplace experience is now a leadership priority
Hybrid work isn’t “settling down.”
It’s continuing to evolve and employees are continuing to adjust how they use office space, how they collaborate, and what they expect from workplace technology.
Gartner’s report is valuable because it doesn’t just describe the problem. It gives leaders a roadmap:
understand behavior
prioritize capabilities
align stakeholders
use AI and analytics to guide decisions
optimize space and scheduling
The workplace of the future is about intelligence, flexibility, and human experience.
To learn more about the CXAI platform, book a demo here.
Download the complimentary Gartner® report
To explore the full Gartner framework and recommendations:
Access the complimentary Gartner® report:
How Digital Workplace Leaders Can Optimize Workplace Experience
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GARTNER® is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
Gartner®, How Digital Workplace Leaders Can Optimize Workplace Experience, By Sohail Majumdar, Tori Paulman, 28 August 2025