  Despite the advances and ubiquity of digital communication media such as
videoconferencing and virtual reality, they remain oblivious to the rich
intentions expressed by users. Beyond transmitting audio, videos, and messages,
we envision digital communication media as proactive facilitators that can
provide unobtrusive assistance to enhance communication and collaboration.
Informed by the results of a formative study, we propose three key design
concepts to explore the systematic integration of intelligence into
communication and collaboration, including the panel substrate, language-based
intent recognition, and lightweight interaction techniques. We developed
CrossTalk, a videoconferencing system that instantiates these concepts, which
was found to enable a more fluid and flexible communication and collaboration
experience.
