At Wednesday’s AVIXA Press Lunch, Mike Sullivan-Trainor, industry analyst, AVIXA, delivered the State of Pro AV: AI, Convergence, and the Next Phase of Growth. While he admitted that Pro AV, much like all industries, is facing global challenges, the industry is alive and well, with continued growth expected to continue well into the future.
[InfoComm 2026: Booths We Love... So Far]
Sullivan-Trainor referenced the book The Experience Economy. While the authors of the book, Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore, took an economic approach, Sullivan-Trainor said there was plenty to take away for the Pro AV industry as an enabler of experiences, not just in corporate and education verticals, but events as well. Sullivan-Trainor turned his attention to three aspects of the new experience economy: what he called shock-proof growth from consumer demand, the convergence of Pro AV and Broadcast, and operational AI.
Resiliency Prevails in Challenging Times
The resiliency of the industry was something Sullivan-Trainor would reference throughout his near-hour long talk. “Pro AV buyers remain resilient, enabling suppliers and integrators to continue to grow revenue,” he said. “While the pace has slowed down from 5.4% to 3.9%, the growth remains ahead of GDP in most countries.”
There has been sustained and steady growth, albeit slower, despite macroeconomic shocks. He pointed out that the percentage of Pro AV buyers who expect a budget increase in Q3 this year remains high at 56.9%, but that should be unsurprising as the cost of products are also on the rise. While tariffs have calmed, an average of 10.4% tariff remains, and the current administration is exploring other means to increase tariffs with no path to a refund in sight. Additionally, the Iran War shut down oil and increased transportation costs from Europe and Asia, which gets passed on to goods and services to the consumer. Lastly, the semiconductor industry is facing a significant shortage of chips due to unprecedented demand driven by the AI boom. The shortage is expected to persist through 2027. Again, Sullivan-Trainor pointed to resiliency that Pro AV continues to persevere.
“Consumers and enterprises will continue to sustain spending on audio and visual despite economic fluctuations,” Sullivan-Trainor concluded. “Users are looking to differentiate experiences and experiences are driven by Pro AV.”
Every Enterprise Is a Broadcaster
What used to be the CEO and C-level executives is no longer the case, as every department wants to have production quality available not just for sales and marketing, but internal communications. He showed that corporate (34.5%) and government (32.3%) led the way in broadcast production room adoption, with education pulling up the rear at 19%. It is a time where we need to increase the quality of experience with such things as real-time graphics, virtual sets, XR layers, and augmented reality integration. He turned to a focus on AV over IP as standardizing IP video democratizes production and broadcast of content while maintaining reliability and signal integrity.
Broadcast brought attributes of the creator economy — such as storytelling, editorial discipline, and reliability engineering — to the corporate world, while software-defined workflows that easily integrate AI allow a greater return on investments in intelligent automation. Sullivan-Trainor shared Broadcast AV’s four core principles that need to be part of the adoption process: measured performance replaces vague quality claims through the use of standards; workflow replaces ad hoc operations with designed, rehearsed, repeatable execution; reliability with less complexity; and enterprise-first design that focuses on business teams. “As enterprises mature in adopting Pro AV, broadcast production as a discipline will become widely adopted,” Sullivan-Trainor said.
An Agentic Shift
Lastly, Sullivan-Trainor shifted to the hottest buzzword on the show floor: AI. While users are quickly adopting to AI, there is still a long way to go. From meeting rooms to classrooms to even stages, AI is clearly adding value. In AVIXA’s Business Index Pool, 65% of Pro AV users said they use AI at work, with 27.7 % using it at least weekly and 37% using it occasionally. When it comes to what type of AI is being used, 70% are using Generative AI. However, Sullivan-Trainor pointed out, the Agentic AI revolution is upon us, and there is certainly a lag in Pro AV.
Part of that is the lack of governance as Pro AV companies are in the early days of figuring out what that means. Risk grows as AI shifts from assistive to autonomous execution, so governance is vital. Companies that have some sort of AI policy jumped from 31% to 47% in the past year, while those that have no policy at all decreased from 48% to 36% over the same span. There is no AI-specific AV security framework, though frameworks like NIST are being used in the interim but provide incomplete coverage leading to several challenges including limited guidance for integrators. However, in the last year, company funding of AI for employees increased more than 60%, showing that productivity benefits are gradually beginning to outweigh the risks of deploying AI. “Pro AV providers are adopting AI, but governance, security, and behavior changes are required to fully leverage it,” he added.
AI has the biggest impact on business’s operations efficiency. “End users will expect AI to be fully embedded to enable automated, adaptive, on-demand, personalized experience,” Sullivan-Trainor concluded.
