Before ISE opened its doors in Barcelona, we laid out five questions that we expected to hear on the show floor. Would buyers ask about reliability? Room-level management? Services growth? Actionable data? AI integration? Our predictions held up - those conversations happened. As VP of Product, I felt it was crucial for my team to be at the show, learning first hand what buyers are looking for.
In addition to my own impressions, my teammates, Jonathan Bhonker, Director of Product, and Gil Ashery, Head of Product Design, had dozens of conversations on the show floor and took copious notes. In this blog, I’ll lay out how the show both confirmed our assumptions and added depth to our understanding of where the market is actually moving.
Data Standardization is the Price of Entry
Two of our pre-show predictions centered on room-level visibility and actionable data. Before the show, we knew that buyers wanted to manage entire spaces, not just devices. They wanted analytics that could drive real decisions. What we discovered at ISE is that both of these demands rest on a single prerequisite: data standardization.
In my conversations, it became even clearer that to enjoy meaningful analytics, the common denominator is to ensure there is standardization in room types, device types, data structure of telemetries.
The market is already moving in this direction. Device OEMs are recognizing the gap themselves. "Device OEMs are coming to us and asking to do something more with the data that can be pulled from their APIs, to give the customers greater value," Jonathan reported. This demand from partners validates what I described above - standardization is the foundation that lets everyone extract greater value from device data.
AI as Infrastructure, Not Spectacle
Before the show, we predicted AI would enable automation and faster decision-making. At ISE, that prediction held up, but with a twist. We found that what buyers want is AI working in the background, reducing friction and delivering real outcomes without drawing attention to itself.
What resonated was how AI is being applied to specific problems. One example I noted is that AI should be able to look into the contracts and warranties and bring greater insights to end-users and MSPs. The good news is that this is already in our roadmap!
Gil saw this play out in real time during product development. "Integrating AI tools into our design workflow was a game-changer," he said. "It allowed us to move from ideation to high-fidelity designs at record speed." When AI solves something concrete - whether surfacing contract terms or accelerating design cycles - buyers immediately grasp the utility.
This deepened our understanding. AI sells when it solves real problems. The most compelling conversations weren't about AI capabilities. They were about what AI could solve in specific operational contexts.
Guided-Healing - What Buyers Actually Need
Before the show, we expected buyers to ask about reliability - assurance that systems would work without constant manual oversight. And they did ask about that. But we learned that they don't want us to provide that reliability. They want the tools to build it themselves.
Jonathan captured this shift: "Customers liked automation and asked about self-healing (telling the system 'when X happens, do Y')." Buyers came to the booth asking specific questions about triggering actions based on conditions they define. They wanted control over how their systems respond to problems.
This extends to complexity. Jonathan noted the depth of interest: "We want to give them the ability to do more complex workflows and guided-healing workflows. Beyond ‘when X happens, do Y’ to ‘when X happens, do Y, and if Y doesn’t solve the problem, check Z, and try A, B or C’ and so on. We need to give them the building blocks to account for all that complexity." Buyers, we learned, don't want black boxes - they want the flexibility to start simple and build out sophistication as operations mature.
Simple Solutions Win (and Secure Edge Confirmed It)
The response to our newest offering, Xyte Secure Edge - a secure, plug-and-play pre-installed appliance that brings local devices into the platform, without customers needing to install, configure, or support their own server - validated this approach. "People want simple solutions,” one of our salespeople told me, “so Secure Edge went over very well and we came out of the show with tons of pre-orders.”
It was clear that AV people understand hardware and how to connect it to a network; they were enthusiastic about the benefit of simplified onboarding. When buyers understand how something works, they trust it enough to customize it.
Partnerships and Cross-Vendor Collaboration
As a founding member of OpenAV Cloud, we knew that interoperability across vendors would matter. At ISE, we saw that vision accelerating – even faster than we could have hoped. The industry is moving toward collaborative problem-solving in ways that totally validate the consortium's purpose.
Jonathan identified the shift: "OEMs who have their own cloud were coming to Xyte and saying they want to give us more access to their device data...to see the latest firmware, reboot commands." These conversations reflect a fundamental change across the industry - different companies recognizing they need each other to deliver better solutions to customers.
Gil's experience on the show floor reinforced this. Beyond product demos, he “…spent a significant portion of the week connecting with design colleagues from Google, Sonos, and others to swap notes on the future of UX." These were collaborative explorations of where the industry is heading.
The show confirmed that buyers increasingly expect vendors to work together. They want ecosystems that interoperate. The companies moving fastest in this space are building bridges across traditional vendor boundaries, creating environments where multiple tools and platforms work as a unified system.
The Bottom Line
ISE 2026 confirmed what we believed going in - buyers are ready for the next phase of the AV industry. What we learned in Barcelona sharpens that picture: they're looking for standards, not features. Control, not convenience. Partners, not vendors.
For product teams building in this space, the message is clear. The winners in AV will be the teams that build the infrastructure layer the industry can rely on – standardized data, simple onboarding, and flexible automation that customers can shape to their reality.
At Xyte, we’re taking those signals seriously, and we’re doubling down on the building blocks that let partners and customers move faster together. The next phase of AV won’t be defined by flashy features – it’ll be defined by the systems that quietly make everything work.
