AI + AV: A perfect match?

• Case Studies

AI dominates today’s technology discourse, often hailed as a transformation on par with fire or the steam engine. Still in its infancy, its true impact remains unproven until breakthroughs reach real products and services. But advocates insist it’s only a matter of time before such applications become everyday reality.

Their stance is widely shared across the AV industry. While AV and AI seem a natural fit, the coming together of these acronyms requires work. The discussion extends beyond technology to leadership, business models, and the value AV delivers to clients.

All aboard the AI train?

The shift to AI represents a monumental change, one that Julian Phillips, SVP global business development and managing director, XTG at AVI-SPL believes is far more significant than any transformation humanity has previously undergone. Phillips says: “The transformation brought about by fire and by the steam engine was very rapid, but it is nothing compared to the speed of what’s going to happen in the era of AI.”

Phillips cautions that industries, AV included, risk being left behind if they cling to outdated business models and legacy mindsets.

Phillips states: “There will be people and businesses that learn how to use AI, and there will be those that will resist and find excuses to not make the change. Who do you think the winners and the losers are going to be?” For Phillips, the choice is stark: adapt or become irrelevant. Businesses that embrace change will redefine the future and those that don’t will be left watching from the sidelines.

This resistance to change is a sentiment echoed by Byron Tarry, founder and chief transformation officer of Nexxt. Tarry highlights a “widening gap” between the potential of AI and the AV industry’s readiness to adopt it. He notes that while more than 50% of S&P companies are already stating that AI is a critical part of their business strategy, the AV world is still struggling to overcome its “unnatural resistance to doing things differently”.

He explains that while AV is adept at getting excited about the potential of change, we are not currently good at understanding and envisioning the “logarithmic change” that AI represents. Tarry references Astro Teller, the head of Google X, to highlight a critical truth: the biggest barrier to innovation isn’t the technology itself, but the human resistance to change. As Teller suggests, breakthroughs often stall not because they aren’t viable, but because people struggle to let go of familiar habits, workflows, or roles. Adoption only happens when the perceived value of the new can overcome not just its potential for better, but all the friction humans face in letting go of the old.

This philosophical thought drives home a point about the current climate. The progress made with AI will not be just about having the tools, but about having the mindset to apply them.

Better mindsets

For both Phillips and Tarry, the solution lies in a fundamental transformation of leadership and business strategy.

Tarry calls on AV leaders to have the courage to overcome fear and resistance: “We have to find the purpose and conviction to set aside our discomfort and pursue what we can’t even fully comprehend at this moment in time. That is the unnerving new reality of business leadership in this new age.”

He argues that the AV industry is uniquely positioned to lead: “While AI has all sorts of applications, the emerging era of human plus digital collaboration has only just begun. There is all sorts of white space to exploit, particularly as human plus AI collaboration moves from primarily 1:1 engagement into group collaborative settings. AV has an advantage as our work has always been rooted in serving the human condition.”

Tarry believes that leadership in this moment requires the ability to translate the feelings of fear and anxiety into empathy, and that empathy into perspective and vision, so that the industry can move from talk to action, and from lagging to leading.

Phillips expands on this idea by challenging how AV companies, and companies on the whole, operate: “We are still running our businesses in the way that Henry Ford designed the production system, with the rows of desks in our offices mimicking the assembly lines of old. This traditional model, which often ties technology refreshes to 10-year building leases, is incompatible with the era of fundamental unpredictability that AI has introduced.”

Phillips explains that calculating return on invested capital over a five-year or ten-year period, a common industry practice, is no longer viable. His comments bear out in action. The AV industry has seen tenant leases shorten and impact the appetite for large-scale investment in technology, with clients beginning to favour investment in smaller batches and measuring return on shorter timescales. According to Phillips, with AI thrown into the mix, these investment cycles and timeframes stand to shorten further, with clients demanding faster, more dynamic solutions.

To illustrate the shift occurring, Phillips provides the example of Walmart. The retail giant is collapsing its traditional hierarchies and now completes projects in six weeks when previously the same undertaking used to take two to three years. According to Phillips, Walmart is no longer thinking in terms of long-term investment cycles but is instead focused on “much more dynamic and much more fluid” ways of using its capital to fund short-term returns.

For AV integrators, this means that the old playbook of selling hardware for multi-million-dollar projects is no longer enough. Customers now need partners who can provide dynamic, service-oriented solutions that enable them to keep pace with relentless innovation. Phillips asks: “Who do you think our clients are going to work with? A traditional AV company that takes three weeks to provide a quote, or somebody that says ‘I’ve got services that I can provide to you right now that can help you to dynamically solve the problems you have’?”

Phillips exhorts businesses to embrace disruption and explore the idea of skunkworks, a “startup inside the company”. This strategy can allow a business to innovate and develop new, relevant solutions at pace. He points to his own experience with AVI-SPL’s Experience Technology Group (XTG). Phillips says: “We believed that everything was going to be about experience, and by creating XTG as a separate entity, we were able to grow it into a half-billion- dollar business providing both growth and relevance.” The same gameplan can be applied to developing AI-powered solutions. He urges the industry to follow suit, emphasising: “Growth on its own is not good enough. You have to deliver growth with relevance.”

The intersection of AV and AI

Business transformation, leadership models, and mindsets are higher-level concepts that can shape a strategy to engage with the advent of AI. But let’s get into the nuts and bolts of how AV and AI intersect. What does it look like in action?

CJ David, client executive partner for APAC at Diversified, answers: “AI intersects with AV in two powerful ways: as the intelligence behind the experience, and as the engine driving operational efficiency.”

He continues: “On the product side, AV hardware has become the canvas for AI-powered applications. This can mean immersive displays showcasing AI-generated content, or collaboration systems that use AI for noise cancellation, real-time transcription, or camera autoframing. The hardware provides the stage, but AI is what makes the experience smarter and more intuitive. AV products are the hardware platforms through which AI can be experienced. For instance, a large LED screen might display AI-generated content, or a modern VC room setup equipped with the latest technology can enable AI-driven features that enhance user experience. In many cases, AV and AI are becoming increasingly inseparable.”

David adds: “On the services side, AI is transforming how AV systems are managed and maintained. From predictive monitoring that spots issues before they cause downtime, to automated troubleshooting and system optimisation, AI reduces risk, cuts costs and improves reliability. This creates a shift from reactive to proactive AV services, a major step toward truly intelligent environments. Areas like security and monitoring can become significantly more efficient, with AI enabling faster responses and the ability to process and analyse vast amounts of complex data. For example, a system with built-in AI might detect when something isn’t functioning correctly and automatically apply a workaround or fix, reducing both risk and downtime.”

To further understand the intersection of AI and AV it is helpful to anthropomorphise them. If AI is the ‘brain’ then AV is the ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’. With this model the synergy and the feedback loop between AV and AI becomes apparently clear. AV has the capability to provide AI with the data and the input it needs to learn and refine operations. In turn, AI has the capabilities of directing AV to create better experience and better outcomes.

First wave

With the intersection of AV and AI clear, it makes sense to look at whether AV and AI are coming together in the form of products and services that can be procured by users.

Many companies now attach the AI label to their offerings, whether or not they truly use it, in an effort to ride the buzz around its development. So, a critical approach is advised.

David says: “AI has long been built into many devices and platforms in our industry. We are now just becoming hyper-aware of all things AI, partly due to their transformative nature but also due to the way AI is being marketed everywhere currently.”

He continues: “What I’m personally interested in right now is productivity. How can AI help me increase output? It’s already helping me automate mundane and repetitive tasks, carry out research, and increase my knowledge on specific products. Lately I’ve also used it to help spark creativity and approach problems in different ways.”

Productivity seems to be the name of the game, and we have the first wave of AI-powered AV products making their way onto the market.

Netspeek’s Lena is a Language Enabled Network Administrator that leverages agentic AI to automate AV and UC operations. Lena is designed to interact with users in natural language, handling tasks like system configuration and troubleshooting for the purpose of assisting in management and monitoring of deployed AV systems. It provides an avenue of for AI to be used to streamline workflows and increase efficiency.

Xilica’s RoomHub offers a practical approach by providing AI-driven insights that optimise for deployment and setup. RoomHub, with the help of AI, has the ability to map a network, discovering ceiling microphones, PTZ cameras, amplifiers and peripherals. Additionally, AI also enables it to measure room acoustics. This data can then be used for installation, configuration, and deployment without human intervention. Xten AV’s Xavia is an AI agent designed to automate AV project lifecycles. Xavia provides AI-powered product recommendations, design automation, and proposal generation, adding value to the creative and logistical aspects of AV project management and execution. Its ability to generate schematics and floor plans automatically demonstrates how AI can drastically accelerate the design and proposal phase.

David comments: “What excites me about Xavia is that it’s a glimpse of where AI can genuinely change the way we work in our industry. Design automation has always been a time-consuming and resource-heavy part of our industry. Xavia’s use of AI to take a project brief, apply standards, and generate design documents in minutes is a real step forward in productivity.”

He continues: “From my perspective, the biggest value is time. If a system like this can give us an 80% starting point in terms of bill of materials, schematics and other documentation, that frees up engineers and client facing personnel to focus on the last 20% which is tailoring the design, applying client-specific requirements and bringing creative value. That’s where human expertise matters most. Let me be clear: I don’t think tools like this will completely replace designers or consultants. They can however be an extremely powerful assistant that’s available 24/7. What I hope to see is this trend continue: AI tools specific to our industry that directly remove friction from workflows.”

The potential of AI is such that integrators like Diversified are not just beholden to manufacturers to provide AI-enabled offerings. They can leverage AI and incorporate it into their own services. This is the path that Diversified is traversing and David details: “Recent initiatives include the launch of an ‘Intelligent Orchestration’ platform for decentralised media production bridging cloud hybrid and on-premise environments to enhance efficiency and flexibility. In corporate and hybrid workspaces, Diversified is leveraging AI for meeting automation, intelligent audiovisual enhancements, transcription services and sentiment analysis to elevate user experience and productivity.”

Beyond these offerings, the integrator is evolving to ensure that the potential of AI is fully explored. James Berry, managing director, APAC, Diversified, says: “Diversified has established dedicated leadership in AI innovation with figures like Blaine Brown, director of machine intelligence, and Jared Timmins, SVP of innovation, steering the company’s strategic direction. Their focus spans generative AI, immersive technologies, and machine learning capabilities that drive both internal innovation and client-facing solutions. The company also champions responsible AI use, advocating for strong governance and risk mitigation frameworks to ensure the ethical deployment of emerging technologies especially in high-security sectors such as finance, healthcare and legal.”

From this first wave of products and the associated approach to AI from integrators it is obvious that the integration of AV and AI is already underway. It is now up to the AV industry to not only adopt these new tools but to also lead in their application.

As Tarry puts it: “Our strength lies in human plus digital collaboration, and it is our unique opportunity to set the path forward. We must embrace the challenge, reinvent our business models, and create a future that is not only technologically advanced but also deeply relevant and purposeful. The question is whether we will seize this moment and be the visionaries, or whether we will become the late majority, allowing others to define our future for us. The choice is ours, individually and collectively.”