September gave workplace teams something they haven\u2019t had much of lately: numbers that could make a CFO stop and think.<\/p>\n
Eight days before CBRE\u2019s APAC release, Logitech gave the budget argument a brand new number. Its September 9 Workplace Equation<\/a> study of 1,700 workplace decision-makers found only 24% involve IT or AV before space planning begins. In other words, the teams expected to make the rooms work are often arriving after the design decisions have already been made.<\/p>\n On September 17, CBRE reported<\/a> that half of the 650-plus corporate real estate executives in its latest Asia Pacific survey expect to expand office space over the next three years. Eighty-eight percent said employees are already in the office at least three days a week, while 85% think attendance has settled into a steady pattern. Tom Gaffney, CBRE\u2019s Head of Leasing for Asia Pacific, said:<\/p>\n \u201cThe workplace conversation in Asia Pacific has fundamentally shifted.\u201d<\/p>\n Six days later, CBRE was back with another report, this time describing India as entering a fresh office-growth cycle as corporate expansion and record leasing activity push demand higher.<\/p>\n That makes the office utilization conversation more interesting right now, while bringing the spending question back into the spotlight. We\u2019ve spent months seeing workplace vendors talk about smarter rooms, AI features, and better experiences. The evidence bar now needs to rise with the market.<\/p>\n What Do the Latest Office Utilization 2026 Numbers Show?<\/p>\n Office use is climbing, but the weekly average is starting to look like a pretty poor tool for deciding what to buy next. CBRE\u2019s 2026 workplace research<\/a> puts average global utilization at 53% for 2025, up from 38% a year earlier. The more revealing figure is 80% peak utilization.<\/p>\n JLL\u2019s separate 2026 benchmark<\/a> puts average utilization at 56%, against a 74% target. The datasets cover different portfolios, which is exactly why finance should ask how \u201cutilization\u201d was measured before approving anything on one percentage.<\/p>\n September\u2019s APAC data is pretty compelling, too. CBRE says 66% of occupiers report average utilization above 60%, while 54% report peak utilization above 80%. HubStar data<\/a> found Tuesday occupancy at 58.6%, compared with 34.5% on Friday. CBRE\u2019s Dutch benchmark<\/a> similarly found offices can be fuller on their busiest days than before the pandemic.<\/p>\n The room mix is changing too, and HubStar says 80% of meetings happen in rooms for six people or fewer, while 17-plus boardrooms average just 12% utilization. A \u201croom shortage\u201d means little until buyers know which rooms are short. JLL\u2019s Dr. Paul Morgan says the<\/p>\n \u201cstructured hybrid model has moved from experiment to expectation.\u201d<\/p>\n That still doesn\u2019t make the investment decision simple. Buyers need the busiest hour, the room type under strain, and the actual failure point before reaching for the 53% headline. Uneven demand is pushing offices toward a system of record connecting bookings, presence, space and equipment.<\/p>\n Google is getting closer to measuring what\u2019s happening inside the room, too. Since September 28, Google Meet has been rolling out occupancy counting on Logitech Gen 2 Android room hardware.<\/p>\n Are Companies Expanding or Shrinking Office Space in 2026?<\/p>\n Both, although the most recent data seems to suggest a focus on selective growth and better space rather than another round of blanket downsizing.<\/p>\n CBRE\u2019s September 23 report<\/a> says India has entered a new office growth cycle, while its 2026 occupier survey found 77% of companies expect their India portfolios to expand over the next two years. CBRE\u2019s October 1 Q3 figures<\/a> also found office absorption reached roughly 21 million sq ft in the quarter, taking the first nine months of 2026 to a record 66.4 million sq ft.<\/p>\n There\u2019s more stability in the Americas. Sixty-six percent of occupiers plan to keep or increase space over the next three years, with 38% expecting outright expansion. Technology companies are especially bullish, jumping from 41% planning growth in 2025 to 64% now.<\/p>\n Europe looks different. Sixty-five percent expect to move within three years, while the supply of modern office space is forecast to drop to 6.8% by 2028. Eighty-eight percent would walk away from a building missing a key amenity, but only a third plan CapEx to reposition what they already have.<\/p>\n So the CBRE occupier survey 2026 story isn\u2019t simply \u201cbigger offices are back<\/a>.\u201d Companies are becoming less willing to pay for space that doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n That changes the conversation around both office expansion and meeting room ROI. In APAC, 52% expect to add small meeting rooms and 53% want more collaborative space, while 19% are planning to cut large rooms. Among companies expecting to grow, 60% point to organic expansion and 85% want Grade A or better buildings. The question isn\u2019t simply how much space to buy. It\u2019s which space will actually get used.<\/p>\n Which Meeting Room ROI Metrics Will a CFO Actually Trust?<\/p>\n The strongest meeting room ROI numbers<\/a> are the ones somebody else can reproduce later. Unfortunately, September\u2019s research suggests plenty of workplace teams still aren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n Logitech\u2019s Workplace Equation study found only 58% of workplace decision-makers feel confident they have the right ROI data to justify workplace and technology investments. It also found meeting-technology failures cost a median 12.2 minutes per person when they happen.<\/p>\n Logitech has previously said 87% believe a strong workplace experience improves productivity and collaboration, but that\u2019s sentiment, not measured productivity uplift. Logitech commissioned the Harris Poll research, so I\u2019d treat the 12.2-minute meeting-technology failure figure as a much more usable input for an ROI model than the 87% belief figure.<\/p>\n Henry Levak, Logitech\u2019s GM of Team Workspace Solutions, argued that<\/p>\n “Strong workplace experiences start when IT, HR, and Real Estate teams work from the same playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n The ownership problem is obvious once the numbers have to reach finance. Facilities may own the room. IT owns the technology. Someone else still has to prove whether either one is paying off. JLL says 92% of organizations rely heavily on badge swipes, but only 7% believe their workplace-data capability is excellent. Wakefield Research found just 19% of 400 US CRE, workplace, and facilities leaders primarily use data to make space-planning decisions.<\/p>\n More tellingly, 52% said uncertainty about usage had delayed or killed expansion plans. That\u2019s why CFO-grade workplace data needs to move past raw attendance. Verified room use, support failures, lifecycle cost, and avoided space expense are much harder to wave away.<\/p>\n Bookings alone<\/a> just aren\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n How Do You Build a Business Case for Meeting Room Technology?<\/p>\n Start with the failure you\u2019re paying for now. If the problem can\u2019t be named, costed, and measured again after deployment, the workplace technology business case won\u2019t hold up.<\/p>\n Trouble is, a lot of meeting room ROI pitches begin with the device or platform and work backward toward a benefit. A CFO is going to ask a much plainer question: what exactly improves if we approve this?<\/p>\n For a 2027 budget request, I\u2019d build the case around six numbers:<\/p>\n Utilization baseline: Start with occupied time. If a room was booked but nobody turned up, it shouldn\u2019t count.<\/p>\n Peak demand: Look at the pinch points. Which days, times, and room sizes are actually hard to get?<\/p>\n Space economics: Work out what you\u2019re paying for the space people really use, rather than the space that simply exists.<\/p>\n Technology economics: Add up the whole room cost, including the kit, licenses, network and support.<\/p>\n Operational friction: Count the messy stuff too. Late starts, broken equipment, support calls, and wasted time looking for another room all cost something.<\/p>\n Outcome test: Decide what has to get better before the money is approved. If that number doesn\u2019t move, the investment hasn\u2019t proved much.<\/p>\n Decide upfront whether success means fewer support tickets, lower room-failure rates, avoided fit-out spend, or better verified capacity use.<\/p>\n The baseline also has to survive an audit twelve months later. Changing the definition of \u201cutilization\u201d halfway through the measurement period makes the percentage practically worthless.<\/p>\n Does RTO Enforcement Change the Workplace Investment Case?<\/p>\n Somewhat. Tougher attendance rules<\/a> do put more pressure on the office, particularly when everybody arrives on the same two or three midweek days. CBRE says 89% of American employers now expect at least three office days, up from 78% in 2025. Employees are averaging 2.9 days against the 3.2 employers would prefer. Once people do arrive, CBRE says they need:<\/p>\n \u201cFunctional technology, available meeting space and adequate focus rooms are prerequisites, not perks.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the baseline barely moves. Gallup\u2019s page, updated September 28<\/a>, says 52% of remote-capable US employees are hybrid and spend about 2.3 days a week on-site.<\/p>\n A September 25 McMaster summary of a meta-analysis spanning 82 studies also found a small positive average productivity effect from working from home, with hybrid arrangements performing particularly well. That doesn\u2019t settle the RTO argument. It does make attendance alone a pretty weak ROI measure.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a spending mismatch here. Forty-seven percent rate their workplace experience as average or worse, while only 14% are making major workplace improvements. Employers are asking more from the office faster than many are improving it.<\/p>\n CBRE\u2019s Julie Whelan built on that point on September 24: workplace success should be measured by effectiveness, not simply occupancy. A floor can look efficient and still leave people short of meeting, focus or reliable hybrid-collaboration space. Badge data can confirm presence<\/a>, but not whether the day produced the collaboration the mandate was supposed to create.<\/p>\n Barclays offers a timely example. Most UK staff now face a three-day requirement, while senior staff face four. After employee pushback, Barclays extended implementation on September 29, allowing some staff to delay the tougher rules until 2027.<\/p>\n The workplace technology business case therefore needs peak-day evidence before anyone adds rooms, desks or devices.<\/p>\n What Should Meeting Room ROI Actually Prove?<\/p>\n Meeting room tech<\/a> is heading into another upgrade cycle, complete with smarter spaces, more AI, better workplace data and lower-cost claims.<\/p>\n But does any of it improve the economics of the room estate?<\/p>\n A new room platform should be able to show what happens to support demand, deployment costs, meeting failures, admin time, utilization, or usable capacity after it goes in. If those numbers don\u2019t move, the feature list matters a lot less.<\/p>\n WebexOne, running October 5\u20138, gives us a live test. Cisco is pitching its \u201cFast Track to Smarter Meeting Rooms\u201d session around lower complexity and TCO. Cisco Spaces is also previewing Workplace Intelligence MCP, which brings occupancy, room availability, and utilization data into AI workflows.<\/p>\n That sounds useful. The harder question is whether it helps a workplace team avoid a fit-out, cut support overhead or make a better capacity decision. We\u2019ve seen this proof gap before. Our September 25 Cisco-versus-Microsoft<\/a> comparison found neither vendor has published clean evidence that its management layer reduces IT workload.<\/p>\n