At many of my recent in-person presentations, I begin with the often-repeated (questionable) tale that frogs will jump out of a pot of boiling water if you try to put them in, but if you put them in cold water and turn up the heat slowly, they won’t notice the change till it’s too late. The AV industry, whether it realizes it or not, is looking pretty froggy. The slow simmer of change has reached a rolling boil.

InfoComm 2025 offered no shortage of shiny demos or product drops (be sure to look at rAVe’s coverage pages). The story to me wasn’t what was there – it was what wasn’t. Booths felt smaller, the usual roster of integrators thinner, and numerous seasoned professionals simply skipped the event or (sadly) have pivoted away from AV careers altogether. This isn’t a market in decline, but one that is certainly consolidating and undergoing tectonic change. Commercial AV is being pulled into enterprise IT’s orbit, remapping its purpose and value.

Acquisition Frenzy: Independent Integrators Sail into Broader Seas

Perhaps the most revealing trend is the sheer volume of mergers and acquisitions. CTI, for example, spent 2024–25 acquiring local integrators like Vistacom, Advanced Systems Integration, Digital Technology Solutions, MP Productions, LightWerks and London’s Candeo Vision – moves that reshape regional presence and IT integration capabilities. Meanwhile, the firm formerly known as AVI Systems – now FORTÉ – closed several deals, including AVCON (North Carolina), AVA (New Jersey), System Video (Ireland), GMS (Germany), and CCS Southeast, all within the past 18 months. The message is clear: local, one-off integrators are being scooped up into larger firms. AVI-SPL, another powerhouse, took a similar path. Since merging AVI and SPL in 2008, it has absorbed firms like Iformata, Anderson Audio Visual, Sharp’s AV (Canada), Digital Video Networks, Sonics AVI (Ireland) and AdTech Systems (New England). These aren’t bolt-on deals – they’re strategic expansions that add managed services, geographic clout and platform integration power.

Rebrands and Reinventions: AV’s Name Game Reflects Strategy Shifts

Rebranding has become and will likely continue to be a rite of passage for integrators shifting toward managed services ecosystems. AVI Systems officially re-launched as FORTÉ in April 2025, marking its transformation into a collaboration centric MSP. CEO Jeff Stoebner emphasized the company’s evolution from AV integrator to strategic IT partner – with revenue surpassing $500 million and a plan to simplify ordering, logistics and support for meeting
rooms.

It’s Time For Honesty: AV Becomes an IT Subsystem

Cast your mind back to InfoComm 2014: Microsoft showed up with tables and chairs, no staff, no product – and had to be convinced to be there. Fastforward to 2025, and whether it’s Crestron, Logitech, QSYS, Cisco or name your favorite manufacturer, Microsoft’s ecosystem (Teams / Azure / Android-MDEP / etc.) exerts a gravitational pull everywhere. Platform alignment is no longer optional – it’s expected.

What This Means for Integrators and Talent

Legacy AV expertise  – hanging projectors, wiring rooms  – is quickly losing relevance. Platform fluency (Teams, Zoom, Meet, Azure, Intune) is now table stakes. Repeatable, standardized, rapid deployment models beat bespoke builds in all but the largest spaces. Firms that can’t standardize, certify and ship turnkey spaces are already falling behind. Careers in AV are evolving: from install techs to hybrid engineers, cloud-config specialists, remote monitoring
experts and platform architects.

Many of us didn’t feel the temperature change, but the steam’s been rising steadily for years.Yet not everyone sees it this way. Many in the industry cling to the old narrative  – that AV stands apart from IT, a specialized craft unto itself. They argue AV has unique skills (acoustic design, signal integrity, staging, room dynamics and more) and they’re not wrong – those skills deserve respect. But, if we’re being honest with ourselves, those are akin to skills in network
engineering or software programming – specialties within a broader ecosystem. If we get out of the pot of heating water long enough to look honestly at what’s going on we’ll see the flames have already risen. The market is signaling that AV must now operate as a specialty within IT, not a standalone island. To resist that shift is to risk obsolescence – or worse, to stay in the pot while the temperature rises, until AVI-SPL, CTI, FORTÉ, or someone else turns up the heat and takes what’s left.

The Future Is MSP + Platform + Velocity + Lifecycle Support

Four winning attributes have crystallized:

1. MSP Mindset – Recurring services, not oneoff installs. Sell support, monitoring, upkeep.
2. Platform Alignment – Solutions must plug cleanly into Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom, Google, etc.
   Disjointed tech stacks won’t cut it.
3. Velocity Delivery – FORTÉ’s has a 10day certified room delivery; Microsoft created “express
   install Teams rooms”; Manufacturers across the board are designing medium room and BYOD
   solutions around Microsoft’s existing MDEP OS, treating it as the new baseline. Speed isn’t a
   nicetohave – it’s now non-negotiable.
4. Lifecycle Orientation – Install, yes. But manage, update, scale, maintain – that’s the edge.

AV, Repositioned

InfoComm 2025 wasn’t a final act – it was the latest milestone in a decade long journey. AV is no longer an isolated discipline but a critical specialty within the digital workplace. If your firm still designs rooms as standalone hardware jobs, bills by the hour, and treats AV as “not quite IT,” it’s time for a reality check. Still not convinced? Stick a thermometer in the pot – but by the time you feel the heat, it may already be too late. This might be your final warning.