At CEDIA Expo/CIX 2025, Ari Supran, CEO of Sonance, demystified artificial intelligence for AV professionals during a Smart Stage session. With a presentation titled “Practical Uses of AI,” Supran aimed to dispel common frustrations and revealed how AI can upskill individuals and businesses.
Supran’s core message was clear: AI is not just for tech experts — it is a tool that anyone can harness to become more capable and efficient. “I believe that AI is an enabler and that it can upskill all of us and make us more capable, more intelligent and do things that we never thought we could do,” he stated. Supran also packed his session with live demonstrations and personal anecdotes, offering a roadmap to integrators for leveraging AI in both daily life and business operations.
Ari Supran on Practical Uses of AI
Key highlights from the session included the following:
- The power of “context engineering” to create AI assistants that deliver highly relevant, customized answers.
- Rise of “vibe coding” which allows non-technical users to build full-stack applications using natural language.
- Emergence of “agentic browsers” that can autonomously perform complex tasks and troubleshoot technical issues.
Unlocking Efficiency with Context and Tools
Supran began by addressing common frustrations with AI, such as its perceived lack of intelligence or its tendency to make things up. To combat this, he suggest integrators to move beyond simple prompting and instead use what he calls “containers.” This strategy, also known as “context engineering,” involves creating custom environments within AI models — like Custom GPTs or Perplexity Spaces — that are fed specific knowledge and instructions. By providing context about the company, writing style and goals, the AI delivers far more relevant and accurate responses. “It’s the context that you give it and [using] the features that they have built around their large language model,” Supran emphasized.
Supran also highlighted several “game-changer” tools that have transformed his workflow. One such example was Wispr Flow, an AI transcription tool that integrates anywhere a user can type. “Instead of typing, I simply hold it down like a walkie-talkie. I speak, and it transcribes,” Supran explained. The tool processes speech and delivers formatted text, saving seconds with each use and accumulating significant time savings throughout the day.
Tools That Redefine Productivity
Another favorite for Supran was Perplexity, which he described as a combination of Google and ChatGPT. Instead of a list of links, Perplexity delivers cited answers, allowing users to conduct research and create shareable wiki-style pages efficiently. He demonstrated this by comparing the cost of living between Sonance’s three main office locations, a task that would be cumbersome with traditional search engines. According to Supran, Perplexity performed the research, compiled the data, converted currencies and generated a shareable page in minutes.
For learning and content creation, Supran also recommended Google’s NotebookLM. At the session, he showcased its ability to generate mind maps, study guides and even video overviews from source documents. By uploading a dealer’s project proposal, he created a mind map breaking down the bill of materials by room, providing a visual tool for project analysis.
From “Vibe Coding” to Full-Stack Applications
A significant portion of the presentation focused on a concept Supran called “vibe coding”—using natural language to create code and build applications. This approach democratizes software development, empowering business professionals to solve their own problems without extensive programming knowledge. He demonstrated this by using Anthropic’s Claude to turn a static PDF about Sonance’s company culture into an interactive scoring system in just 90 seconds. According to Supran, while this initial creation was a front-end-only “micro app” it opened his eyes to the possibilities.
Supran then introduced tools like Replit and Lovable, which enable non-coders to build full-stack applications with secure back-end infrastructure, including databases and user authentication. “The future of computer programming languages is English,” he declared, noting that coding knowledge is not required in such cases. To prove the point, he then showcased an internal application built to audit complex UPS invoices against Sonance’s contracts, identifying overcharges with precision.
This tool, developed with vibe-coding principles, demonstrates a tangible return on investment by saving the company thousands of dollars. The ultimate goal, Supran shared, is not to eliminate jobs but to empower employees. He remarks, “It’s about empowering our people to focus on higher value work that better serves our customers and strengthens our company.”
The Dawn of Agentic AI
Looking toward the future, Supran elaborated on the concept of agentic AI, where AI moves from answering questions to actively performing tasks. He showed an example of an “agentic browser” from Perplexity called Comet. A custom installer used Comet to troubleshoot a complex networking issue involving a UniFi router with dual WAN connections. The AI agent diagnosed the problem, proposed a solution and, with permission, implemented the fix. “The whole thing took perhaps 10 minutes,” reported the installer, after his technicians had struggled with the issue for weeks. According to Supran, this anecdote illustrates the potential for agentic AI to revolutionize technical support and system configuration, saving integrators invaluable time and resources.
Final Thoughts
Supran then concluded with a thought for the audience to consider. “Don’t underestimate what AI is capable of…But most importantly, don’t underestimate what you are capable of when using AI.”
Indeed, this session on AI by Ari Supran served as both an education and an inspiration, proving that with the right mindset and tools, anyone can unlock the practical power of artificial intelligence.
Interested in more Smart Stage at CEDIA Expo/CIX 2025 sessions for forward-thinking discussions? Visit the official CEDIA Expo website for additional session highlights and industry analysis!
