Editor’s Note: This ISE 2025 recap is an adapted version of Dan Ferrisi’s editorial in the coming March 2025 print issue of CI+SSI.
The technology world came together in Barcelona last week at ISE 2025, offering an opportunity not only to check out new technological innovations but also, more importantly, to identify emerging trends and mindshare among peers and competitors. Commercial Integrator boasted its largest-ever presence at the show, with three editors — Alyssa Borelli, Zach Comeau and me — fanning out across eight halls, as well as networking events and parties that spread across the entirety of Barcelona. Moreover, we presented our annual Top New Technology (TNT) Awards at the HDBaseT Alliance booth and captured numerous thought-leadership interviews that’ll filter across social platforms in the weeks ahead. Not bad for a trio of jet-lagged American editors traveling abroad!
Among the hottest topics all week was broadcast AV, a term that AVIXA and other industry stakeholders use to describe the nontraditional broadcast activities that enterprises, universities and others increasingly embrace. These days, everyone — and every organization — strives to be a storyteller and content creator. Creating and distributing the right content can add more luster to a corporation’s brand and earn it more business; for a college or university, meanwhile, creating compelling content can mean attracting new students (and their tuition dollars). It’s no wonder that AVIXA market research forecasts broadcast AV to have a very healthy CAGR in the coming years, significantly outstripping growth rates for more traditional solution areas like learning and conferencing/collaboration. The fully functional AVIXA TV studio served as a constant reminder of what today’s technologies can produce.
Continuing our recap of the show, conversation at ISE 2025 seemed to frequently turn to IPMX, an open-standard protocol for interoperable AV-over-IP. As Alyssa Borelli writes in the March issue of CI’s feature on IPMX, the protocol builds on SMPTE ST 2110, which has been successfully used in live TV broadcasts. The challenge to this point, it seems, has largely been generating awareness of IPMX, which the AIMS Alliance and the Joint Taskforce on Network Media (JT-NM) developed collaboratively. Indeed, in past years’ Deep Dive surveys, we found that IPMX was one of the least-understood networking approaches in our industry, with familiarity trailing that of Dante, NDI and SDVoE. This year, that has changed, with prominent vendors like Matrox Video and PlexusAV attesting that integrators and consultants are beginning to come to them and inquire about IPMX. It’s a notable shift, and one we plan to continue watching.
This open-standard protocol dovetails nicely with another hot topic at ISE 2025: the collective desire for wide interoperability across manufacturer and series/model boundaries. Whether it’s because of concern about supply-chain-related vulnerabilities, the specter of tariffs on imports or simply customers’ desire to avoid being “locked in” to any single solution provider, I continued to hear the term “walled garden” used as a negative counterpoint to exhibitors’ open and interoperable solutions. Adjectives like “flexible” and nouns like “partnership” prevailed in Barcelona, underlining an opportunity for those who “play nicely with others.”
Another compelling proposition for showgoers was the continued rise of the Experience Economy. As we cover in CI+SSI’s State of the Industry feature in the January/February issue, we’re seeing significant commoditization in corporate conference rooms, classrooms and other environments that benefited from adaptive expenditure during the pandemic years. Although some integrators find strong profitability in these spaces by systemizing their designs, scaling them across huge footprints and managing them remotely, others are experiencing the challenge of tighter profit margins and a simplicity of installation that might obviate the integrator’s role. That’s one reason many integrators are looking to dive into environments that are more experiential…more immersive…more interactive. That could be anything from the shared reality of Cosm to dazzling flagship retail stores. At ISE 2025, industry tastemakers expressed their belief that integrators should embrace the role of experience designer.
I left Barcelona and ISE 2025 exhausted, yes, but also invigorated. It was a joyful experience to commune with the #avtweeps community and arm myself with insights that will help you, our readers, to run your business better. Thanks to each one of you who shared an interview, a chat, a meal or a pearl of wisdom with me. You enrich our journalism, and you inspire us in our mission to educate and inform.
Keep your eyes on our site in the coming days and weeks as we continue to recap and analyze the ISE 2025 show!
