After-hours meetings are on the rise. AI could make things even worse

"Six in 10 people attend meetings after hours at least once a month, and that has all kinds of negative downstream effects. The data suggests more and more people consistently have meetings after their usual workday ends, and it's getting worse; not just in the U.S. or Europe, but across the board."

"For each hour a worker spends on momentum work like brainstorming, collaborative workshops and interactive cross functional projects, they spend three more on maintenance tasks, like emails, paperwork and meetings. It creates stress, it's a productivity drain, and saps them off their creativity."

"Bad meeting hygiene is definitely a contributor. You get into the meeting, there's no agenda, they run over constantly, there's no decisions made, so you get another meeting around it; it's incredibly ineffective."

After-hours meetings have become increasingly common, with 33% of US knowledge workers attending them frequently in 2025, up from 23% in 2024. This trend reflects broader meeting proliferation, where workers spend three hours on maintenance tasks like emails and meetings for every hour of productive momentum work. The rise stems from easy scheduling and video conferencing technology combined with poor meeting hygiene—including missing agendas, overruns, and lack of decisions. Experts warn that while AI and technology are proposed solutions, reversing this trend requires organizational culture change and proper meeting guidelines rather than technological fixes alone.

Read at Fast Company