ISE 2024: Evolutionary, not Revolutionary, AI is Everywhere, and Boy Did This Show Get Big!

Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) got BIG this year! The official tally is "73,891 unique verified attendees from 162 countries." That's a new attendance record for the global AV show and a 27% jump over 2023. And since I'm in big numbers mode, ISE 2024 also had 1,408 exhibitors, another record. I'll say it flat out: ISE has twice the number of attendees as InfoComm Show, and regarding new product launches, it looks like ISE has InfoComm beat.

That doesn't make InfoComm any less valuable to AV companies like CTI doing business in the US. It does make ISE even more valuable to AV companies that want the inside scoop on new products. That's one reason we send our CTO, Eric Snider CTS-D, there every year. There's what the press release says and what the product managers, engineers, and launch partners can tell you in a meeting room or out in the hallway.

I didn't head to ISE this year; I'm wrapping up something big back at home, so Matthew McNeil, our Chief Solutions Officer, got to carry a few extra meetings with clients. And, of course, time in the PSNI Global Alliance stand, getting to know our partners better, and, of course, meeting with potential clients. It's one of my favorite parts of the year.

I also enjoy seeing what's new. That photo at the top of this article is the Muxwave Holographic Invisible Screen deployed on the South Access of Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via exhibition center, ISE’s current home. At 193 square meters, roughly 2000 square feet, with 950 plus tiles mounted inside the glass, it's big. Folks onsite say it's an impressive demo of the technology, though, Dave Haynes pointed out in Sixteen:Nine, it's neither invisible nor holographic!

The word from the show floor is that AI was everywhere, though we could argue whether "artificial intelligence" was actually in the product. One of the bigger announcements was Crestron Electronics 1 Beyond cameras with optical zoom, Visual AI, a New Powerful Processor, and Onboard Neural Processing. Crestron acquired 1 Beyond in 2022; the new lineup of 1 Beyond cameras includes intelligent cameras that can run in framing or tracker mode, along with a more basic PTZ camera that works with Automate VX for speaker tracking and framing. SDI, HDMI, Ethernet, and USB. They offer some exciting options for integrations, and between the optical zoom and AI, they’re promising broadcast quality switching across multiple cameras. I’m curious to see them deployed in the real world!

For the most part, this was an evolutionary, not revolutionary, year for ISE. Nothing was announced that’s going to CHANGE EVERYTHING in AV. AtlasIED invested a “significant equity stake” in AIMLINE_AUDIO and added the German audio company’s steerable column speakers into a lineup already in 60% of the airports in the US. BrightSign LLC has offered SoC solution that allowed their OS to be built into the manufacturer’s hardware for some time; at ISE, they announced the Bright Alliance to strengthen its relationship with CMS partners. And the folks from HOLOPLOT brought X2, a new, more compact version of the 3D audio beamforming system that makes The Sphere’s audio so amazing. Again, I’m curious to see this deployed in the field: a weatherproof audio system that promises to make the announcement on a train platform intelligible or the audio in a resort less cringe? Good by me.

With 1400 vendors in attendance, that’s not even a measurable fraction of the news from ISE 2024. I’m still catching announcements and catching up with the folks from CTI who were on site. And I’m still looking forward to InfoComm 2024. It’s a valuable show for us, so much so that we’ll have our own booth on the show floor again this year. Be sure to look us up; we’ll make it worth your time.