65 material extraction, energy use, transportation and end-of-life disposal. Organisations should then prioritise energy-efficient AV equipment with features like automatic power management, LED display backlighting and efficient internal components. Sustainability efforts should include extending hardware lifespans through maintenance and upgrades, securely recycling e-waste and emphasising reuse over disposal. Also, educating users on sustainable practices maximises these efforts. Training should focus on how to use efficient power settings, reduce physical media and travel and adopt paperless workflows. Together, these measures make AV systems more environmentally responsible while maintaining high performance. As conferencing technology becomes more commodified, concerns about quality and accessibility arise. How is this trend impacting the AV industry and what should organisations consider when choosing costeffective solutions? This trend has flooded the enterprise market with low-cost, feature-limited AV solutions, often at the expense of professional quality, performance and support. The technical impacts on the AV industry include increased price pressure, reliability concerns, interoperability challenges, and limited technical support and maintenance with commodity AV solutions often having reduced availability of firmware updates, spare parts and technical support. As organisations balance budgetary constraints with the need for high-performance, accessible AV capabilities, they should evaluate key technical factors, including long-term total cost of ownership, after maintenance, support and upgrade expenses. They must also prioritise AV solutions that conform to industry standards. In addition, they should ensure that AV hardware and software meet relevant accessibility guidelines, such as captioning and screenreader compatibility, and choose products that accommodate organisational growth. What major trends or innovations do you expect will shape the AV industry in future? AI is transforming AV technology through innovations that enhance collaboration, maintenance, security and sustainability. Intelligent collaboration features like automated camera framing, speaker tracking and personalised AV experiences powered by AI make virtual meetings more fluid and inclusive. Meanwhile, predictive maintenance uses machine learning to optimise system uptime by identifying and addressing issues before they occur. Security is also advancing, with AI supporting zero-trust architectures that verify users, devices and connections accessing AV systems. UEM integrates with advanced tools to ensure visibility, threat detection and rapid mitigation. Sustainability is becoming a priority, driving the development of energy-efficient AV hardware with advanced power management and modular designs. Circular economy practices – including refurbishment, reuse and e-waste recycling – are streamlining lifecycle management. Additionally, transitioning AV workloads to virtualised, cloud-based platforms is reducing hardware footprints and energy demands, offering scalable and sustainable solutions for the industry. Learn more about the Smart Workplace Summit taking place at ISE at: www.iseurope.org Photo: iStock/AndreyPopov
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