Editor’s Note: This dispatch from Commercial Integrator editor Dan Ferrisi shares personal reflections on InfoComm 2026 and summarizes key show takeaways.
My 21st in-person InfoComm is in the books. As I walked the Las Vegas Convention Center, I couldn’t help but think about my first InfoComm back in 2005. I vaguely remember calling my parents (on a payphone!) from the Riviera hotel and casino, recounting every detail of an experience that had left me awed.
CI Editor: InfoComm 2026 Awed Me
Twenty-one years in, the InfoComm show still awes me. It’s not so much the spectacle anymore — although, admittedly, there was plenty of spectacle. Instead, these days, I’m drawn to what’s happening underneath it all.
Sometime between the launch of YouTube back in 2005 (look it up!) and today, the pro AV industry crossed a threshold: We finally advanced beyond competing on spec sheets and price. As I toured booths at InfoComm, I saw a market that has collectively acknowledged that AV’s real value lives somewhere else: It lives in outcomes…in experiences…in projects that earn repeat business rather than just earning a check marked “final payment.”
What I’m talking about isn’t an abstract conceit for a journalist’s Editor’s Note. For integrators, this is the heart of advancing beyond being a commodity purveyor to instead become a trusted advisor and strategic partner. An integrator who can deliver seamless audio throughout an entire venue — consistent, uniform voicing from an intimate bar area to a grand lobby and beyond — isn’t just “selling speakers.” Instead, they’re selling an experience that clients may not be able to fully articulate but that they can definitely feel. And when you deliver ineffable experiences in environments ranging from themed entertainment to higher education, you insulate yourself from the lowest-price race to the bottom.
Editor Takeaway: InfoComm 2026 Highlighted Ease of Installation, Repeatability
Another theme I found at numerous booths — and one that, arguably, matters the most to integration businesses’ day-to-day health — is ease of installation and repeatability. Yes, this isn’t the most glamorous topic when InfoComm featured dozens of high-brightness DVLED videowalls that practically required a pair of sunglasses to gaze at. But I believe that installation flexibility is the single most important margin lever that integrators have at their disposal.
Labor is where project profitability lives or dies. The flashy product is what earns the Commercial Integrator headline, no doubt; but it’s the install process that determines whether the job actually makes money. And fast, reproducible processes will scale from the first project straight through to every job that follows. It’s the gap between those who are busy being busy and those who are busy being profitable.
Of course, InfoComm showgoers have been talking about “convergence” in our industry roughly since Alexander Graham Bell placed his first call. But InfoComm suggested that the economics of delivering high-quality content over existing infrastructure have caught up to our collective ambitions. That hands integrators the right to claim a seat alongside enterprise IT stakeholders — a privilege that equally carries the responsibility to be security conscious and network conversant. Integrators who can speak these languages fluently will close more deals with enterprise clients and get right of first refusal for every project to follow. And the ones who cannot? Well, they risk being on the outside looking in.
Value-added distribution is part of this picture, too. As projects grow more complex, routinely spanning audio, video, networking and control, integrators need distributor partners that can support the full stack. Those distributors aren’t mere logistics providers; instead, they’re competitive resources and strategic partners. I believe that integrators who treat their distribution relationships strategically — as a genuine extension of their internal capabilities — will move faster and do better.
What is My Post-InfoComm Grand Synthesis?
So, what is my grand synthesis as a trade editor who covered InfoComm 2026 last month? The integrator’s role isn’t contracting; it’s expanding. Integration professionals are being asked to design experiences, manage networks and deliver intelligent systems, and they’re getting it done. The next step is to exercise the operational discipline that protects margin. It may be a lot to ask when pipelines are flush and jobsites are beckoning, but it’s the clearest path to a more profitable, more durable industry.
InfoComm exhibitors showed us where the value is moving. Now, it’s integrators that will show us what comes next.
