Barcelona hosted some of the biggest brands in the world to show off the best the AV industry has to offer.
No conference has had it easy in recent years. Without dragging up the past, the appetite for a global international event may have been subdued somewhat for want of a better word.
But ISE 2024 felt like an official “we’re back” moment from a show that, on reflection, couldn’t have chosen a worse time to move from Amsterdam across Europe to the 500,000m2 facility in the Fira, Barcelona in 2021.
I happened to have been in Amsterdam in 2020 for the last show at RAI, and have fond memories of diverted planes due to Storm Ciara and wheelie bins of hand sanitiser dotted all over the place as the COVID-19 pandemic began its intrusion into our lives.
In those days the show was between the 10th and the 14th of February so, I’m obliged to say “more important than all of that I ruined Valentine’s Day because I didn’t want to go to dinner when we came back and I’m very sorry.”
A lot has changed since I last went to ISE. Front and centre that year was a huge curved display rigged up to a Play Station for anyone who wanted a go at playing FIFA in between meetings. This year, while the hardware was as impressive as ever, a handful of exhibitors were reticent to use the topic of the day, Artificial Intelligence, opting instead for Machine Learning or Analytics.
“The challenge in a way is that AI has become a buzzword that overshadows everything you do,” said Holger Graeff, General Manager EMEA, Vivitek. “Businesses can say today ‘We are working on AI features’ but we should ask what is it? What does it mean?
“Internally, in Taiwan, we have built a booth that considers artificial intelligence but these advantages happen at different levels. So I’d like to see more before commenting on it more.”
“You walk anywhere here and the stand says that they have something with AI but that of course means something different to everybody,” said Nicole Corbin, Vice President of Operations, at Utelogy
“Of course, we are looking into it. There are things that we can do with data and analytics in our platform, and we’re always looking at gathering even more insights we can present to our end users.
“We can provide self-healing services already, but I wouldn’t necessarily call what we are currently doing AI. Maybe in the future, we will look into machine learning and predictive analytics so that nobody needs to analyse the analytics.”
Despite a little scepticism, Richard Trestain, Product Marketing Manager, EMEA at Jabra showed that the AI installed in systems is making meeting room experiences better.
“We have a lot of work to do before AI has the ability to direct the meeting,” said Trestain. “We already have AI-based chips on the device and that’s how we’re delivering the kind of feature that we might have called machine learning.
“The application of AI to make the meeting experience even smoother is great. People are talking about how cameras don’t necessarily focus on the person who is talking in the room, because we might want to see other participants’ reactions to what is being said.
“We already do something quite nice, which is that if two people are talking to each other it will deliberately place them in the right position so they’re actually talking to each other across the screen. So with our system, participants won’t be talking directly over the screen. They’ll all be sitting next to each other. It’s these things that we can do with AI.”
The Attitude Problem
Away from the technology, a key theme of the show was addressing attitudes towards remote or hybrid working within the wider business landscape.
However, in a world where management seems to be clinging to the idea of coming into the office every day, Kristin Celano, Senior Director of Global Brand and Communications at Owl Labs pointed out we’re all new to this.
“We spent something like 50 years to figure out the way to work is to go to an office every day,” said Celano. “Everyone is a little hard on hybrid, but we’ve been at it for three or four years. We have to give it a second.
“I think more immersive technology, engaging technology is going to help, better hybrid policies, listening to your employees, there’s going to be a mix of things that are just different than how we’ve done previously.
“We also learned it’s expensive to go into the office. In the States, it was something like $56 a day on average to come into the office, including commuting costs, if you buy lunch or dinner, or a coffee.”
With this expense, it’s not a surprise that Owl Labs discovered that some employees believed that remote working should be a legal right in its State of Hybrid Report. Celano and Global Channel SVP at Owl Labs, Ben MacDonald, went on to address the question of how to convince employees to come back to the office.
“Some companies now are covering commuting costs or transport costs, which is great. Another trend is that younger generations want to wear what they want, so businesses might ditch the dress code, instead of paying them more money or covering commuting costs.”
“Companies are trying to mandate it, and other companies are trying to sell it,” said MacDonald. “But the cost of incentivising employees to come back to the office has gone through the roof and maybe isn’t working as well as mandating it.”
“You just have to look at the data and figure out the different levers that matter to employees and build better experiences,” continued Celano. “I always say, every year we come out with this report, for five years straight it has said that everyone is tired. But if you know the trends that are happening, we can create the solutions that are meeting those demands, because our products can solve the problems the data is suggesting.”
Equity of Experience
While where we will be communicating is a debate that will rage on, the experience that we receive is still something that needs to be addressed.
Meeting Equity was a topic that summed up the focus of the show as businesses continue to look for new ways to keep their employees engaged after logging on.
“We are coming from a pre-pandemic conference room which had a projector or a display and that’s it at the end,” said Siegfried Hermann, Lightware President of EMEA. “But I think the trend all over Europe is that we won’t come back to the same scenario we had five years ago where everyone goes to the office every morning.
“As we become more spread out, meeting equity, and making sure we have the same experience sitting in the conference room than sitting at home, or on the phone is important.
“We need more equipment in all the conference rooms so that we can share, collaborate, and communicate with people all over the world because the time has ended, everyone will go to the office.”
“I think some people think meeting equity is just a bonus, but it’s essential,” said Shure Senior Director of Integrated Sales, Rob Smith. “Because typically, if you think about a big meeting, the managing director and the board for example, if the CEO comes in and sits at the head of the table furthest from the screen, it’s likely that person won’t be heard, but that’s the most expensive person in the room.
“Habitually I work from home. But if I’m in a meeting with headquarters, and I can’t hear half the meeting, and I can’t be heard, I might as well have not gone.”
Turning towards a solution, Tonya Brilon Head of Product Marketing, Personal Workspace B2B at Logitech said that to even start to move forward, software and hardware fundamentally need to work together.
“Before the pandemic sometimes there was one person who dialled into a meeting but most of the people were sat around a table,” said Brilon. “Then when the pandemic hit we all got equal space in the meeting with our own Hollywood Square. Now the reverse is true, the people who go into the meeting room have a square but the other participants can’t see the people in the meeting room.
“We have tried to combat that with software, like smart switching or smart gallery and we have launched Sight cameras, a 315-degree view that can focus on who is speaking.
“The hardware and the software are enabling us to create more equitable meetings, but then I think, as human beings, we have to be more thoughtful about turning to the screen and speaking to those people, rather than pretending that only the people in the room are in the meeting.
“I think that if you have a culture of hybrid working, then everybody will know what it’s like to be on that other end, and you’ll see people try to turn to the screen and ask the remote participants what they think.
“So it’s a combination of technology and culture. Or just come back to the office so you don’t have to worry about it!”
Rob Smith, Senior Director of Integrated Sales, Shure
ISE is a very efficient way of meeting a very large, large number of people in a short space of time. We also believe in being good corporate neighbours and supporting industry events, and more importantly, it is a good place to exchange views, see where the world’s going and catch up with people.
Ben MacDonald, Global Channel SVP, Owl Labs
This is our first year at ISE but we’ve been to Infocomm for several years. I have to tell you, they’re both unbelievable shows. Infocomm is invaluable for North America, but I’m also finding a lot of people from North America here at ISE who are trying to learn, and see what’s changed in six months because the innovation in the space is crazy. So this show is my favourite bar none.
Holger Graeff, General Manager EMEA, Vivitek
We have a rather strong reseller base in EMEA, so it’s great to see our customers because we are working with distributors in a lot of countries to meet their customers and get a feeling for how the industry is developing, what the signs of the time are, and what direction people are going.
Tonya Brilon, Head of Product Marketing, Personal Workspace B2B, Logitech
It’s about talking to customers, it’s talking to people in our industry and asking what are the pain points, what are they seeing. I’ve had a lot of great conversations with attendees here looking for solutions and asking them what’s working for you? What’s not working for you? So I think, for all of us, it’s an opportunity to meet customers face to face of course, but it’s also an opportunity to just talk to people in our space.
