A virtual meeting is any conversation that happens over the internet instead of in the same room. That covers a quick one-on-one video call, a full team standup, or a client presentation with dozens of people dialing in from different countries. What's changed in the last few years isn't the basic idea. It's what happens around the meeting: scheduling, notes, and follow-up increasingly happen automatically instead of falling on whoever remembered to take notes.
This guide covers what a virtual meeting is, how to host one well, and what to look for in the platform you use to run them.
What is a virtual meeting?
A virtual meeting is a real-time conversation conducted over the internet using video, audio, or screen sharing, instead of everyone being physically present in the same location. Participants join from a computer, phone, or dedicated meeting room device, and the meeting can include just two people or a few hundred.
You'll also hear virtual meetings called online meetings, video conferences, or remote meetings. They're the same thing described a few different ways.
How virtual meetings work
At a basic level, a virtual meeting platform streams audio and video between participants in real time and lets anyone in the meeting share their screen. Most platforms also support dialing in by phone for anyone without a reliable internet connection, so a virtual meeting doesn't require a laptop and webcam to join.
The meeting itself can run through a browser, a downloaded app, or a dedicated room device for conference rooms. Where the technology has moved forward is in what happens during and after the call: live captions, AI-generated notes, and automatic action items now handle a lot of what used to require someone to type while everyone else talked.
Common types of virtual meetings
Virtual meetings cover a wide range of formats:
One-on-ones: quick check-ins between two people, often the simplest version of a virtual meeting
Team meetings: standups, planning sessions, and internal reviews
Client or external meetings: sales calls, consultations, or vendor check-ins where the other side may not use your company's tools
Large sessions: company all-hands, webinars, or training sessions with far more viewers than active participants
That last category is where platform choice starts to matter more. A meeting with 500 attendees has different needs than a call between two people, and not every platform scales cleanly between the two without added cost or complexity.
How to host a virtual meeting
Hosting a virtual meeting generally comes down to a few steps, regardless of which platform you use:
Schedule the meeting: Most people do this through a calendar integration (Google Calendar or Outlook) so the meeting link and invite go out automatically.
Send the invite: Make sure external guests can join without needing to create an account first. Requiring sign-up is one of the more common reasons people show up late or not at all.
Start or join: Give people more than one way in: from a browser, a desktop app, or by dialing in if they're not near a computer.
Run the meeting: Screen sharing and reactions keep things moving, but the bigger shift is AI that can transcribe the conversation and take notes in the background, so hosts and participants can focus on the discussion instead of typing.
Wrap up: A good virtual meeting ends with something to act on. Automatically generated action items save the step of someone writing up a recap after the fact, and pull double duty as a meeting notes template for anyone who wants a consistent format to work from.
Dialpad Meetings, the video conferencing feature built into Dialpad Connect, covers each of these steps, including calendar integrations and AI-generated notes and action items, without requiring a separate app or account for guests joining from outside your company.
Virtual meeting etiquette
A few habits make virtual meetings noticeably better for everyone involved:
Mute when you're not speaking: background noise is the most common complaint about virtual meetings, and it's the easiest one to fix
Turn your camera on when it's appropriate: video helps engagement in smaller or more collaborative meetings, though it matters less in large webinars or all-hands
Avoid multitasking: it's tempting to answer emails during a call, but it shows, and it's part of why note-taking tends to fall through the cracks
Be mindful of time zones: especially for recurring meetings with a distributed team
That third point is where AI-generated notes help beyond convenience. When the meeting is capturing its own notes and action items, there's less pressure to split attention between listening and typing, which is part of why that feature has become table stakes rather than a nice-to-have.
What to look for in a virtual meeting platform
Not every virtual meeting platform is built for the same use case, so it's worth evaluating a few things before committing to one:
Reliability: a platform that drops calls or lags under a full meeting load creates more problems than it solves
Guest access: can external participants join without creating an account, or does that add friction to client and vendor calls?
Calendar and CRM integrations: scheduling should fit into tools your team already uses, not require a separate workflow
AI features: transcription, notes, and action items can meaningfully cut down on post-meeting admin work
Security: look for options like meeting PINs and encryption, particularly for external or client-facing meetings
Dialpad Meetings: video conferencing built into your unified communications platform
Dialpad Meetings is the video conferencing feature included with Dialpad Connect, Dialpad's unified communications solution. Rather than running meetings through a separate app, teams already using Dialpad Connect for calling and messaging get virtual meetings in the same platform.
A few specifics worth knowing:
AI-generated notes and action items capture what happened in the meeting and what to do next, without anyone needing to type during the call
Multiple ways to join: web browser, desktop app, mobile app, or dial-in by phone
Calendar integrations with Google Calendar and Outlook for scheduling directly from tools your team already uses
No account required for guests, so external participants can join a meeting without signing up first
Scales to larger sessions: Dialpad Meetings Business supports up to 150 participants, and the Large Meetings add-on extends that to as many as 1,500 for all-hands or webinar-style sessions
See it in action
Set up a virtual meeting in minutes and see how AI-generated notes work in practice.
Virtual meeting FAQs
Most virtual meetings can be joined from a link sent by the host, either through a browser, a downloaded app, or by dialing in with a phone number if one is provided. You typically don't need to create an account just to join someone else's meeting.
It depends on the platform, but many, including Dialpad Meetings, let guests join without creating an account. If a platform requires sign-up just to attend, it's worth flagging as friction for external meetings with clients or partners.
Yes. Zoom, Google Meet, and Dialpad Meetings are all examples of platforms used to host virtual meetings. The term "virtual meeting" describes the format, not any one specific tool.