AVT Question: Please share insights on the ongoing transition to networked AV and the role the cloud and AI play.
Thought Leader: Steven Barlow, President of DVIGear
Every vendor claims a full networked AV/IT suite. The real question is, how do you get there without ripping out equipment that still has years of life left, and without opening new security holes? The ideal approach is a transition that's additive rather than wholesale. DisplayNet uses standards-based, uncompressed distribution that can run over the IP network you already operate, coexisting with the matrix switchers and endpoints already in place—so you can migrate on your own schedule instead of someone else's, extending the infrastructure you own rather than replacing it.
Operating AV-over-IP has meant mastering proprietary APIs and control syntax.
Steven Barlow, President of DVIGear
On security, putting AV on IP isn't a new attack surface to fear; it's the opportunity to bring AV under the same enterprise governance—segmentation, authentication, monitoring—that already protects everything else. Uncompressed, deterministic signals stay on premises where real-time video belongs. That also defines the cloud's role: Latency keeps the pixels local, so the cloud handles the control plane of orchestration, monitoring, and configuration.
The most stubborn barrier has always been expertise. Operating AV-over-IP has meant mastering proprietary APIs and control syntax. DisplayNet Connect for AI Agents removes that bottleneck. As the first AV-over-IP system with native Model Context Protocol support, it's directly controllable by Claude, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI, or any MCP-compatible agent. A technology manager states intent in plain language and the system configures itself, compressing what once took days of custom development into minutes.
The winning transition is incremental, secures itself with the IT stack you already trust, and uses AI to erase the learning curve that kept networked AV out of reach.
