On July 16, rAVe [PUBS] and LAVNCH [CODE] celebrated AI (Artificial Intelligence) Day with a series of stories written by industry experts. (If you missed it, you can check out our wrap-up of our AI-focused coverage here.) Keeping with the spirit of sparking a conversation about AI, we focused July’s Temperature Check survey on AI in the context of the ProAV industry. Here’s a summary of what we found:

Our first question was, “Where will ProAV most benefit from AI integration?” The vast majority of respondents said ProAV would most benefit from intelligent video analytics, such as object recognition and tracking.

When asked about the results of this question, Scott Tiner, director of client services for Bates College, raised concerns about the implication of unconscious bias as we begin to use intelligent video analysis more regularly. “We have seen countless examples of where facial recognition fails as skin complexion gets darker. If we want AI to provide equitable experiences for everyone, we need to be sure to consider the wide variety of experiences, capabilities and physical differences of people,” Tiner said. He warned that if we fail to consider and address these biases, we will “teach” AI to have the same prejudices.

Thuy LeDinh, director of product marketing for 22Miles, stressed the importance of content analysis and processing that AI integration provides: “By gaining immediate understanding of audience engagement and sentiment, professionals can swiftly adapt content or presentations on the fly to cater precisely to the audience’s interests, leading to a more impactful and tailored experience.”

Our next question was, “What is your greatest concern about the use of AI in ProAV?” The major concerns of respondents are data privacy and security, as well as the accuracy/reliability of AI.

When asked about these results, Justin Lachovsky, director of sales and marketing at Telecine Multimedia, said, “As with all developing technologies, there is always a concern with data privacy and security. As there is no current legislation in place to monitor AI, it is hard to say how “safe” our data is when being processed through an AI platform.”

Lachovsky also agreed that the accuracy of AI should be a concern in using AI in ProAV: “There have been many folks who have tried to ‘break’ AI tools and have been successful in highlighting its pitfalls. Even I had the opportunity to ask an AI a few of the same questions with differing results depending on how the question was asked.” Tiner agrees that the accuracy and reliability of AI should be a major concern. He stressed that the AV industry needs to “promote ethical and fair” applications of AI.

Britt Mier y Terán, head of business development at Harpie, also posited that the reliability of AI tuning is a “clear concern” of the industry. “The creativity and input of a human is a unique flavor, since concepts like “great sound” are
subjective,” she said.

Our final question was, “What is the main advantage of using AI for ProAV?” Most respondents determined that the main advantage was improved efficiency and productivity.

Tiner disagreed with the majority of respondents. Instead, he believes the main advantage of AI is to customize and personalize experiences. Tiner hopes that improved efficiency and productivity “does not equate to laying off staff,” with businesses trying to replace staff entirely with AI. Instead, Tiner believes businesses should delegate more “rote tasks” to AI so that employees “can be more creative, thoughtful and provide more value to their customers and their company.”‘

Lachovsky said the main advantage of using AI for ProAV is primarily “enhanced content quality and delivery with improved efficiency and productivity.” Lachovsky says AI has “streamlined” the production process for content creation when “developing new backend tools for our customers.” The streamlined production has “increased our ability to deliver content in an effective manner and provide a variety of more content options for little extra cost.”