For most of its history, the audiovisual industry has chased better meetings.
We improved cameras so people could be seen clearly.
We improved microphones so people could be heard clearly.
We simplified interfaces so people could join faster.
Yet even in today’s most advanced collaboration spaces, the same moment still happens: a room full of people sits down — and something doesn’t work.
Not because the technology is bad, but because the system is fragile.
During a recent Built Together podcast conversation, Sam Kennedy described the root of the problem in one sentence:
“We built incredible rooms with eyes and ears… but we forgot to give them a brain.”
That idea reframes the conversation around AV. The issue isn’t capability anymore — it’s reliability.
The Gap Between Capability and Reliability
Modern rooms are impressive on paper. A typical enterprise space might include multiple cameras, beamforming microphones, DSP processing, scheduling panels, occupancy sensors, and integrated conferencing platforms.
Individually, these devices perform extremely well. Together, they can be unpredictable.
Sam Kennedy pointed out that the real impact of failure isn’t technical — it’s human:
“When one piece in a room doesn’t work, the number of people affected in that moment grows exponentially.”
That’s why AV failures feel disproportionate compared to other IT issues. They’re public, immediate, and highly visible.
Organizations haven’t struggled to build good rooms.
They’ve struggled to operate them at scale.
The Hidden Cost of Support
Many companies assume the barrier to deploying more collaboration spaces is budget. In reality, as Sam Kennedy explained, it’s operational confidence.
If every additional room creates more support tickets, deployments slow down. Complexity becomes risk.
Typical workflows still look like this:
- A meeting fails
- A ticket is created
- A technician investigates
- A specialist is eventually called
- The fix turns out to be simple
Sam Kennedy shared a familiar reality for integrators and IT teams:
“I have to send experts to drive hours to fix a problem that was just a reboot.”
The problem isn’t difficulty — it’s timing. The room needed to work before the meeting started.
Because of this, organizations often standardize heavily, not for user experience but for supportability. The industry quietly optimized for fewer surprises instead of better collaboration.
Why Expectations Are Changing
Users no longer compare meeting rooms to other meeting rooms.
They compare them to everyday technology.
Cars adjust automatically. Phones recover instantly. Software updates silently overnight.
Sam Kennedy framed the expectation clearly:
“We shouldn’t have to walk into a room and orchestrate the room — it should just do what it needs to do.”
The goal is no longer usability alone. It’s trust.
Moving From Monitoring to Understanding
For years, monitoring has been the industry’s safety net. Devices report online/offline status, and teams react when something breaks.
But device status doesn’t equal experience quality.
A room can show every component as online and still fail a meeting.
Sam Kennedy described the shift toward systems that don’t just report problems but resolve them:
“Everything should always be working — and if it’s not, it should self-heal. Only then should a human need to intervene.”
Instead of reacting after failure, environments can:
- Check themselves before use
- Correct simple issues automatically
- Alert humans only when necessary
- Reduce avoidable tickets
When basic failures disappear, support teams stop spending mornings putting out fires and start spending time improving spaces.
The Multi-Vendor Reality
Most real-world deployments are mixed environments. Different buildings, regions, budgets, and timelines naturally lead to multiple manufacturers working together.
Historically, this created support anxiety. Standardization became a coping strategy — fewer variables meant fewer unknowns.
But Sam Kennedy emphasized the reality of modern deployments:
“There is no single vendor that solves every problem in every space.”
As operational confidence increases, so does design freedom. Teams can focus on outcomes instead of compatibility fears.
What This Changes for AV Teams
One of the biggest impacts isn’t technical — it’s professional.
Most AV specialists didn’t enter the field to troubleshoot recurring minor issues. Yet much of their day has historically been consumed by them.
Remove enough small failures and the role shifts naturally:
- From reactive to preventative
- From maintenance to enablement
- From fixing rooms to shaping how people collaborate
Sam Kennedy noted this isn’t about replacing people:
“AI isn’t removing jobs — it lets people focus on the complex, creative work instead of the noise.”
Organizations benefit too. Confidence increases, which leads to more deployed spaces and more ambitious environments.
Growth follows reliability.
Looking Ahead
The next generation of workplaces won’t necessarily look futuristic. They’ll feel predictable.
Walk in, and the space is ready.
Start talking, and the system responds.
Leave, and it resets itself.
Sam Kennedy described a future where technology becomes proactive rather than reactive:
“We’re moving toward a world where help arrives before you have to ask for it.”
Why This Matters
Every major expansion of the AV industry came from removing friction:
- Networking removed location barriers
- Unified communications removed distance barriers
- Cloud platforms removed access barriers
The next expansion removes operational hesitation.
When companies believe rooms will simply work, they build more of them. More rooms mean more collaboration, more integration, and more opportunity for innovation across the entire ecosystem.
The future of AV isn’t about smarter hardware.
As Sam Kennedy’s perspective suggests, it’s about dependable experiences.
And reliability — more than any new feature — is what finally allows technology to fade into the background, where collaboration has always belonged.