What is async feedback? Definition for distributed teams

Async feedback is product or design feedback exchanged without requiring everyone in the conversation to be present at the same time — usually in writing, sometimes via recorded video.

The motivation is operational: distributed teams cannot synchronize calendars cheaply, and even co-located teams pay a real cost for every meeting. Async feedback lets the reviewer produce when they have context and lets the recipient consume when they can act.

What makes it work

The artifact has to stand alone. If the reader needs to message the author for clarification, the async benefit collapses — now it is a meeting with extra steps. Self-contained means the visual context is attached, the relevant state is described, and the action requested is explicit.

That is also why async feedback maps cleanly onto AI-agent workflows. A coding agent reading a feedback document has no way to ask follow-up questions; the document has to carry everything the agent needs to act. The discipline that makes async work for humans is the same discipline that makes it work for agents.