Can AI unleash AV superpowers for integrators?

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As we’ve seen from HiddenWires’ recent trade show coverage, personalisation is re-defining habits in the home and directing custom install - like many sectors - towards AI. We’ll hear from leading voices about how home automation can harness the joint insight of software agents and human discernment for the better. Against a backdrop of virtual assistants and chat bots taking the public by storm, the AV industry is grappling with questions old and new: how can integrators increase efficiency without compromising skill and craft? What can we do to ensure data in the home stays private? Is there a growing distaste for digitisation in the home?

We sat down with Gavin Lantzy, CEO of SaaviHome and entrepreneur who is scheduled to deliver a talk on ‘Leveraging AI Tools to Improve Your Business’at ISE 2025, Barcelona. “AI has read every language known to man, including the classics, Wikipedia, YouTube - every ounce of knowledge production, current and past,” he begins. “It’s been trained on this data to have memory, formulate plans and review mistakes. It’s more than a traditional software tool. “I'm coming to Barcelona to discuss how we lead with AI, because it takes leadership to adopt this technology and deploy it ethically. When we get to that level of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which some have forecast in the next two years, others the next five to seven, we need to remember we have the power to unplug the machine.

Gavin Lantzy, entrepeneur and CEO of SaaviHome

“There are fascinating things that AI can do for customer experience, operations, data collection, analytics, marketing and sales. Now software protocols can make it easier for smart products to understand their own analytics and programming, supporting integrators who need to make the lights talk to the shades, talk to the HVAC system - that takes a lot of language programming and high expertise to figure out. Wouldn't it be nicer if that same programming interface can now tell the room shades to talk to the lighting system?

“I think that's where the manufacturers will be able to adopt this software inside their programming of devices, as we see with Apple's local phone solution removing the need for connection to the Cloud. That will save companies drastic amounts of time and allow customers to control how they want to set their scenes and control their technology.”

As companies look for tools to streamline such complex integrations, AI-driven platforms like GoogleGemini and Microsoft Dynamics have become increasingly popular among professionals. These generative AI tools not only simplify programming and device support but also harness remarkable cognitive power - ChatGPT-4, for example, boasts a verbal IQ of 152, exceeding that of 99% of humans and predicted to improve tenfold in the coming year.

Efficiencies gained, costs saved 

Lantzy continues: “We are part of the Microsoft Dynamics backbone at SaaviHome, which means we get access to the ChatGPT Copilot feature embedded in 365. That’s the one main frontier model that we use day-to-day. Another one I love is Planner from Microsoft, which breaks an initiative down into individual tasks before distributing it to my employees. In the past that would have taken team meetings, revisions, thoughts, comments and talk through.

“I consider AI as a smart intern on the team - whether it’s Claude, Perplexity or any of the others on the GPT backbone, these frontier models all require a human at the helm to make the intelligence productive.

“I think a lot of professionals are trying to understand how to use AI to better their businesses, as there is no playbook or set of practises to follow. We're all writing this story together. I look at this as the latest industrial revolution, an unprecedented way to access data and information like never before. If you're not paying attention to AI in this day and age, you're missing the boat. It is reinventing the way we can do business.”

President of TSP Smart Spaces, Michael Oh, shares a similar enthusiasm for AI-enhanced business processes: “I certainly look at it as a collaborative intelligence over artificial. Being a technologist and engineer, my conclusion is that what you think is an original business idea has already been put forward in a hundred different ways on the web. I think the more you put in, the more you get out. ChatGPT is amazing because you can come back to something you analysed three weeks ago and it will have the memory to quote the conversation in context, before allowing you to continue that somewhere else.

Michael Oh, president, TSP Smart Spaces

“If you're servicing a certain type of clientele, they’ll be looking for a human relationship, somebody they can ask questions to, somebody that can help manage multiple homes with complex systems. But there’s a lot that AI can do to optimise workload: for example, I could see AI functioning as a platform that takes an architect's plans and then runs them through building control, planning permission and potential structural issues. In that regard, AI might help us validate and de-risk designs of systems.

“Having said that, AI as an integrated smart home solution is complicated. Technology has this tendency to fill up your notifications, not always with helpful information - ten notifications a day, which is just life. AI can create an additional layer of anxiety or angst, much in the same way that social media does with news.

“The house will learn who you are, your activities and required environments with AI. That's all well and good, but there are situations in our lives where we have completely different scenarios very quickly: you have a baby, you get a dog, you have guests. All these things change the interactions in your home overnight.

“Humans on their own hardly can cope with the changes in the home, so how can AI navigate all these intricacies of life? Eventually it might get there, but if people go too quickly in implementing these technologies there could be a backlash. When a rules-based smart home technology changes in a way the client doesn’t expect, they start to distrust it, as I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s when high-cost Crestron installations operated unpredictably. You can't de-bug AI; you can't open the hood, look at the code and pinpoint where the error is.”

The consumer market has sought to address these concerns, witnessing the release of products like Google Assistant’s Duplex conversational voice feature and Flic’s physical home control button in 2018. Owen Maddock, home technology consultant and founder of Cinemaworks, believes AI is “right at the top” of its projected period of excitement, disillusion and stability, known as Gartner’s hype cycle: “When I first started out a decade ago, there was a lot of froth around the Internet of Things–Google Nest, Alexa, even Philips Hue lighting. After that initial peak and later changes, systems like Nest really haven’t lived up to the hype - but they found a place where they’re useful, heating and doorbells mostly.”

Language, trust and algorithms 

AI, as a large language model (LLM), uses repetitive patterns to refine and deliver information. As Oh points out, user trust could be breached if AI imposes patterns in the home that are neither needed nor wanted. For Maddock, the privacy aspect is a bigger risk in home control systems: “I’m confident using Rako, Lutron and KNX because they’re incredibly reliable, but I’m a fence-sitter when it comesto AI - which is not nearly as field-tested or privacy-conscious. I’m deeply concerned about data going to a third-party server outside my clients’ homes, the big AI companies use partner services and we can’t know they’re all secure. The idea that bad actors could hack in and see if my clients are at home is a big concern.

Owen Maddock, founder, Cinemaworks

“Besides the risks around security in the home, data and occupancy, I see a lot of AI-powered ‘creative’ in blogs and social media posts and I don’t believe that can build trust with audiences. If there's a brand you love, it feels a certain way - copywriters call it tone of voice. AI feels over-enthusiastic, whereas well-crafted copy feels like real people. I think of Cinemaworks as being designer-led, artisan and a personal bespoke service; I try to reflect that in the writing, whereas LLMs deliver a stream of learned words like a photocopier - it doesn’t sound anything like the people the client ends up talking to.

“I can see AI assisting with basic calculations as part of an integrator’s checks, building on existing skill and know-how. You can think of AI as a team of bright interns, not a design director. If I was busier I’d be happy to use AI-enabled design software, and I’m sure that’ll come along, but with me at the top checking the work. My friend Ben Goff already uses AI to assist him with the world-class cinemas he’s designing, but the point is he’s able to check the output, and without that ability you might come unstuck. Or a visual designer might ask an AI assistant to provide them with three colour palettes for a layout they’ve already created to flesh out their idea.”

Smart versus dumb home

“Despite having more AI software subscriptions that you could shake a stick at, I don't have a huge appetite for AI in home technology. I'm less interested in gadgets and more interested in useful, simple and beautiful technology that makes our lives better,” says James Ratcliffe, managing director at UK-based technology integrator Homeplay.

“Based on what's currently available, 'smart homes' are dumb when viewed through the lens ofChatGPT or Google Gemini. Certainly in the UK, almost all the leading professionally installed smart home platforms are based around input/output, 'if this, then that' type programming. The systems are not intelligently guessing what we want from our lighting, music or heating and quite frankly, I don't think I want them to. I'd rather have a system that does what I want every time, rather than an AI trying to guess what I might want to happen.

“I'm not personally a fan of the term 'Smart Home', although that's what much of our industry has aligned itself with. I think for much of the population 'Smart Home' has negative connotations, conjuring images of needy gadgets that clutter up your house and force you to become an IT manager for your family. Our clients don't want gadgets that make their busy lives more complicated - in my experience they want to consume content in great quality and without friction, feeling comfortable in their homes. I can see a trend away from 'smart home', touchscreens and expensive remote controls and I'm personally glad for it.

"That said, there are some exceptionally visionary people like Alex Capecelatro at Josh.AI working on clever stuff, so I'm staying true to my nerdy roots and keeping a very close eye on how the technology progresses."

James Ratcliffe, managing director, Homeplay

‘Unplugging’ in personal environments has become a newly desirable lifestyle choice, with Google’s introduction of a digital well-being platform to Android and the Time Well Spent movement breeding a distaste for excessive devices. A revival of traditional technologies over high tech interiors reflects society’s growing interest in simple pleasures and JOMO, ‘the joy of missing out’ on social media.

While AI in the home is problematic, the residential custom install process is becoming easier to conceptualise with AI in the loop. Ratcliffe recalls his visit to CEDIA 2024, where he experienced Portal.io’s AI Proposal Builder as it celebrated its tenth anniversary and won ‘Best in Show for Residential Systems’: “This tool allows you to walk around the house and list the features you want in each room to build a comprehensive proposal. You could be doing a walk-through in a client's house and say, ‘We're in the kitchen and in this room, we'd like to install a pair of ceiling speakers with a Sonos amplifier,’ and it will transform that into budget, descriptions and products in minutes, integrated with invoicing software QuickBooks.”

“I think there's a lot that AI can do to expedite the design process - being able to create 4-5 realistic images of a media room to get feedback from a client without having to spend days or weeks doing so is a huge win. We've been experimenting with AI plug-ins for 3ds Max like tyDiffusion and it's amazing what you can do. AI doesn't replace the creative process, but it does speed it up. I can also see the creation of system documentation, schematics, cable schedules etc becoming far quicker and easier to produce over the coming years with AI tools.

“I think jobs in the CEDIA channel are very safe for the time being - if the Tesla Robot takes as long to come to market as Full Self Driving has, physical installation of systems will still need doing in time to come. And the most important part of our industry will never be replaced by AI - the human relationships that make this such a brilliant place to work.”

Concerns about prediction, data privacy and domestic environment continue to cast a shadow over AI application in residential custom install. However, LLMs offer benefits for integrators looking to expedite their daily workload while keeping a steer on the communications crucial to their business relationships. Our four expert voices are clear: standardised tasks are heading towards the realm of AI, augmenting a skilled workforce and transforming logistics for the long haul.

Main image credit: SomYuZu/Shutterstock.com