Artificial intelligence has taken over Pro AV. At least, it feels that way. New products tout “AI this” or “AI that.” Some folks brag how AI is simplifying their inbox or streamlining their reports, while others fear for their jobs. Every professional conversation somehow seems to wind its way back to AI.
Once we get past summaries that reduce hourlong meetings into bullet points and Instagram videos that trample on intellectual properties for comedic effect, what does it all mean? From machine learning to large language models (LLMs), how is AI truly impacting the Pro AV industry today, and what can we expect in the coming years?
To find the answers, SCN reached out to industry futurists and technologists to collect their thoughts on the current state of AI in Pro AV—and explore potential roadmaps into our industry's next chapters.
Accentuate the Positive
Julian Phillips, SVP and managing director of XTG, the AVI-SPL Experience Technology Group, has spoken extensively about AI and last year released LevAIthan: A Brief History of Humanity and AI, a book co-authored with Athena, his AI assistant. In his book, he argued that we should stop calling it “artificial intelligence” and start calling it “augmented intelligence.” His point is that AI’s greatest value is in strengthening people, not replacing them.
“If we call it artificial intelligence, we think substitution. If we call it augmented intelligence, we think amplification,” he explained. “The wording matters because language shapes strategy. The best AI does not remove the human being from the experience; it makes the human more capable within it.”
According to Phillips, AI is most powerful when it helps designers, technicians, support teams, and end users work faster, smarter, and with greater confidence. “At AVI-SPL, for example, Symphony helps organizations monitor and manage assets across the network, identify issues earlier, and support users more proactively,” Phillips said. “That is a practical example of intelligence improving both operational performance and the user experience.”
In his role at Midwich, Chris Neto, head of emerging markets, revealed that AI is changing the conversation both internally at and with external vendor partners. “'Emerging markets' used to mean geography. Now it also means capability,” he said. “AI is accelerating that shift. Markets and verticals that may have lagged in the traditional sense now have the opportunity to leapfrog through software-driven, AI-enabled solutions.”
And that’s where Neto’s role is evolving. “It’s no longer just about identifying where growth might happen,” he said, “it’s about helping our teams within Midwich understand what’s possible and then extending that insight to our vendors and manufacturer partners so we can move together, faster and more strategically. AI doesn’t replace strategy, but it absolutely sharpens it.”
Of course, the willingness to integrate AI with AV systems depends entirely on the client, said Rich Green, president and CEO of Rich Green Design. "We’re still very early in the AI journey," he said, "so what my clients demand is superb audio, superb video, and flawless connectivity. Our job as integrators is to help them understand how AI fits into their broader digital transformation strategy. If AI can improve speech intelligibility or automate presentation connectivity, hooray! If it gets in the way, VC partners get ornery."
Perceptions and Realities
So, is AI being perceived in Pro AV as a godsend or a job killer? If you ask Neto, it's following a very familiar pattern.
“Every major shift, from DSP to networked AV to the cloud, came with the same fear cycle,” he said. “AI is just the latest iteration. The difference now is the speed and accessibility. The people who see it as a job killer are usually thinking about tasks. The people who see it as a tool are thinking about outcomes.”
"The Pro AV industry has always relied heavily on automated workflows, and AI represents a new era for efficiency," added David Labuskes, CEO of AVIXA. "Adopting AI requires thoughtful consideration of how it fits into current systems and processes. In some cases, it may accelerate tasks or simplify programming, but the fundamentals remain the same: Professionals are still defining the goals, guiding the system, and validating the outcomes."
AVIXA maintained a pragmatic view of AI in its education program at InfoComm 2026. "AVIXA is focused on what’s actually happening with AI today," Labuskes said. "We’ve moved past the phases of 'AI will do everything' and 'AI isn’t doing most of those things.' Instead, we’re now in a phase where practical applications are emerging and adoption is steadily growing. Rather than focusing on fears of widespread job loss, the emphasis is on how people are actually using AI in their day-to-day roles to work more efficiently and effectively."
Phillips warned that AI literacy is vital in today's Pro AV workplace, because AI is entering the workplace—whether people are ready for it or not. "In modern Pro AV, understanding AI is becoming as important as understanding signal flow," he said. "AI literacy matters because it helps people separate real capability from hype. It helps them ask better questions, apply the tools responsibly, and have more credible conversations with customers who are already looking at how AI fits into their workplace strategies. This is not about keeping up, it's about staying ahead."
Joe Andrulis, EVP of corporate development for Biamp, expects AI will empower productivity gains, because it eliminates training barriers and helps workers come up to speed more rapidly. "With AI, products get easier to implement because the products themselves incorporate artificial intelligence to make setup more dependable and to handle situations dynamically," he explained. "However, I don’t know the net effect, positive or negative. I think the effect of AI will be varied by sector and by application area. Some jobs are going to be greatly enhanced, and AI will be a big boost to AV, while others might be negatively impacted."
For example, Andrulis acknowledged that one of the big challenges in the dealer community has been finding qualified people. "The more that AV systems can incorporate intelligence natively, the more easily integrators can install systems with less specialized workers, which can make it easier to hire while also ensuring a more standardized outcome across geographies," he said. "In the past, customers were often willing to pay for high-value installation services, but that was very difficult for dealers to scale as the pool of qualified experts is very limited. With AI, they are giving up some of that high-value work, but in return they get scale. Scale is how dealers can win with AI."
Aim Higher
"On the design and pre-construction side, AI tools are meaningfully accelerating how integrators work," Green observed. "AI can help parse complex RFPs, draft system narratives, cross-reference equipment specifications, and even generate first-pass signal flow documentation. Work that used to take days can now take an hour. That's not a small thing because it frees up real time for the higher-value, higher-judgment work that actually requires a human expert."
That expertise is an indispensable part of equation. "We dare not underestimate the human in the loop," Green warned. "Nurturing talented and competent professional humans is the most important path to sustained success and prosperity. The liability and the craft are still ours to own."
AV has always been built on relationships, trust, and experience, which Neto said AI can’t replace. Instead, AI removes friction. “It handles the repeatable, the predictable, and the scalable, which frees us up to focus on what actually matters: creativity, customer experience, and quality service,” he said. “So no, it’s not killing jobs, but it is going to expose complacency.”
Based on discussions with clients and other integrators, Dave Van Hoy, president of Advanced Systems Group, said defining what AI is for Pro AV really depends on who you ask. “AI is a buzzword. AI is an initiative. AI is an actual functional tool. We're at the evolution of these tools, where all these things are true,” he offered. “It’s in many applications. It's a management initiative with no clear definition. It's being used today in everything from camera tracking to closed captioning, graphics generation, and many other things."
AVIXA research shows a shift toward practical adoption. According to Labuskes, studies of AI use in the Pro AV workplace show significant growth in implementation, along with increased recognition of its benefits, particularly since the rise of GenAI. "While AI continues to evolve, it is clearly becoming more deeply embedded within organizations," he said, "and as adoption matures, its business impact will be increasingly measurable."
But Phillips believes too many organizations are treating AI as a productivity hack, rather than as a "partner in exploration" that can help teams model possibilities, test ideas faster, identify patterns, and solve problems. "If we're implementing AI just to make us faster," he argued, "we're aiming too low."
Present Practicalities
In the real world, AI features have gone from nice-to-have to expected faster than most people realize. “Walk into any modern meeting space, and AI is already there—whether people call it that or not,” Neto offered. “Auto-framing, speaker tracking, noise cancellation, transcription, translation. These aren’t futuristic features anymore, they’re baseline expectations.”
However, when it comes to AI and UCC, Neto thinks the industry needs a reality check. “AI is only as good as the environment it’s operating in,” he explained. “We can’t talk about AI-driven transcription and translation, arguably two of the most in-demand features from end users, without talking about acoustics. If the room sounds bad, the AI performs badly. It’s that simple.”
Shure is already integrating AI into its products to provide intelligent noise suppression and voice focus. "AI is only as effective as the data it ingests," agreed Christine Schyvinck, president and CEO of Shure, "so pristine audio is paramount for AI to do its job and for end users to experience greater productivity."
In other words, speech intelligibility should now be considered foundational for meeting spaces. Poor acoustics lead to poor data, which leads to poor outcomes.
“So, while AI is raising the bar for what these systems can do, it’s also raising the bar for how we design spaces,” Neto advised. “Integrators and designers need to think beyond the camera and the codec and start with the room itself. Because at the end of the day, if the AI can’t clearly understand what’s being said, everything else falls apart.”
Improving Products
Schyvinck believes AI can be a game changer when it comes to product development—with the right governance, policies, and planning. At her company, AI is not only assisting with the process, it's making product development more effective and efficient.
"AI has definitely helped accelerate many tasks, which can help us bring products to market faster," Schyvinck noted. "It is especially well suited for rapid prototyping. AI assists with learning and acquiring user feedback earlier in the development process, which is something we value a great deal at Shure because of our focus on customer input."
Schyvinck said Shure has been leveraging AI in its products for years, and it serves a critical role in today's UCC products. " AI helps with hybrid work pain points," she explained. "It enhances meeting intelligence, workflow automation, personalization, and analytics."
AI is certainly improving Biamp products—for example, cameras include auto zoom and focus as well as tilting capabilities, while AI noise reduction is helping to improve voice intelligibility in ways that users may not even realize. "Thinking broadly, AI is enabling products to become easier to use while also becoming more flexible," Andrulis said. "AI software, such as Biamp Launch, is now embedded into system programming, including auto setup and auto tuning.
"This is useful beyond just installation, as it can adapt to changes in the environment. As a result, the end user is getting a much more polished experience in a wider set of use cases," Andrulis added. "It’s all happening more efficiently and at lower cost, with overall better performance and without any overt action from individuals."
Predictions and Next Steps
AI has already made some pretty impressive technological strides. As Labuskes said, "While our eyes are on how AI is being used in practical AV applications, we're also tracking its potential to make huge shifts across the industry."
Coming soon, look for continued growth in Edge AI, which is the practice of running AI locally on AV devices instead of sending it to the cloud. And beyond that is Physical AI, which combines sensors and control systems with AI to create meeting rooms that essentially run themselves.
Van Hoy said the best is yet to come. "Today, AI can take care of many mundane tasks," he said. "As we go forward, it will be able to do more sophisticated things, including technical direct productions and allow voice control of AV systems for unattended use. The applications will continue to evolve, particularly in the routine applications where humans provide the least creative value."
Schyvinck has already seen the shift from static hardware to adaptive learning systems. "End users want meetings that automatically generate, track, and facilitate action items and tasks," she explained. "They want rooms that self-diagnose issues and trigger support workflows or even self-heal."
Green agreed that platforms that can flag anomalies in system behavior before a client even notices a problem are a "genuine operational win" for integrators and end users. "AI-enhanced knowledge management systems for system integrators and support technicians will be a game changer," he predicted.
Voice control in professional environments needs attention, Green said, mostly because consumer voice AI tech can't be used due to cybersecurity and privacy concerns. However, he expects agentic AI, which makes its own decisions and takes action, to have a significant impact on system interoperability. "It’s a wild frontier fraught with hazards but improving exponentially," he added. "That’s the space to watch right now."
A Word of Warning
For Neto, the future of AI in Pro AV is about better overall experiences, not features. The industry is heading toward environments that are context-aware spaces that "understand who’s in the room, what they’re trying to do, and adjust in real time without manual intervention."
However, that kind of AI integration should probably come with a warning sticker. "Just because we can automate everything doesn’t mean we should," Neto said. "There’s a balance between intelligent and intrusive. The winners won’t be the ones who cram in the most AI; they’ll be the ones who use it with purpose thoughtfully, transparently, and in ways that actually make human interaction better, not more complicated."
For Green, the IT manager is often the integrator's point of contact, and they are "extremely cautious" about introducing AI. "Cybersecurity is top of mind in these firms. AI poses new threats, often cleverly disguised," he explained. "It’s best to defer to predictable reliability and hold off on AI tricks in these environments. Sophisticated clients can see right through them."
While AI-driven diagnostics and remote monitoring are maturing, Green said the interoperability and standardization layer still needs improvement. "Integrated systems can be sourced from a dozen different manufacturers, and the AI features often live in proprietary ecosystems that don't talk to each other elegantly," he noted. "The industry needs either stronger open standards or deeper partnerships at the platform level before AI can reach its full potential in a fully integrated system."
Andrulis had his own warning—about unintended consequences. "As the systems become smarter, we need to recognize that our industry is about audio and video sensors," he said, "and as they become more widely used and data is processed more intelligently, there are valid concerns about surveillance or the misuse of personal information. Users may not even be aware it’s happening.
"The good news is that as we get more information, we can do even more wonderful things with that information, but that is assuming good intentions," he continued. "Bad actors can use that information in ways that do not benefit end users. There is a potential dark side to this paradigm and as an industry we need to be cognizant of that."
