At HTSA’s 2023 Fall Conference, in a ballroom packed to the brim with dealers and vendors, Jon Robbins, Executive Director, HTSA, equated the custom integration industry to that of the California wine industry.

Back in the day, as the industry was forming itself, it was a cutthroat business. For the wineries across the state, it was not uncommon for competitors to engage in a hefty bit of skullduggery to beat the competition. Those practices came at a cost, however: eventually, the California wine industry hit a point where it couldn’t grow amidst all the infighting.

It wasn’t until members of the industry came together and agreed to work with one another that the industry began to flourish. Now, California wine has become respected on the global stage, ranked amongst prestigious French, Italian and Spanish wines, and it may not have been possible if the industry kept up with its little in fights.

Is the situation with the CI industry as bad as with the winemakers? That’s up to personal opinion. Could the integration industry achieve those heights of success if integrators stop looking at each other as competitors? The assertion at the 2023 HTSA Fall Conference is ‘Yes!’

“Our competitors aren’t other integrators,” Robbins discussed with me the following day. “Our competitors are people that sell boats and people that sell swimming pools and people that sell high end appliances.

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“The same dollars that could be spent on a luxury home system are the same dollars that could be spent on a wine cellar, because at the end of the day, it’s a lifestyle choice, and we encourage our members to look at it that way.”

Given some of the conversations I’ve had with dealers while at the show, it seems variations of that collaboration are already starting to happen (at least among HTSA members).

With an industry built on recommendations and client relations, it’s not uncommon that a client living in Texas might want the same firm who did their first house to kit out their second home in Colorado. The issue? Servicing. What if something goes wrong? Even with the fastest response, it may take days or even weeks for a technician to fly out from Wyoming to Florida to fix it.

With servicing being the backbone of the client experience, this has led many of the integrators I spoke with collaborating with integrators local to those specific projects, working out business deals that ensure everyone gets what they want, especially the client. The original integrator designs the system and provides the products, the local integrator installs everything, and the client gets their dream home.

It’s a small insight into the potential future of the industry, but it’s one I think is occurring as we speak as many integrators separately agree, “Yeah, this is great for business.” Even outside of these more intimate talks, though, sentiment surrounding the 2023 HTSA Fall Conference’s message seemed particularly high.

Addressing the AI-lephant in the Room

Pivoting on that concept of existential challenges facing the industry: AI was another big topic of the event. Keynoting the first night, Isar Metis, plucked hot from the CEDIA AI Symposium earlier this year, delivered a marathon, two-and-a-half-hour-long talk on AI, and, astoundingly, the room stayed rather full (who said attention span is going out the window?).

There’s enough out there about AI to fuel a week’s worth of discussions, but it has to be noted Metis did an enviable job bringing people up to speed on AI and its capabilities before diving headfirst into business use cases. Some examples showcased during the talks included how to draft customized business proposals, develop client-specific brochures and quickly throwing together employee onboarding videos.

“We have several members where some members are working with AI every day right now,” mentioned Robbins as we discussed HTSA’s current stance on AI in the industry.

“The reason why we hosted the AI Symposium at CEDIA, why we’ve gone deep into discussion at this year’s Fall Conference is because not only do we believe that it’s going to be a major part of our industry, but that it’s also going to be a major part of our lives. We need a lot of people to be aware, and what we found was that a lot of people before CEDIA Expo, had no idea about [AI].”

“It defeats the blank page,” said Keith Esterly, Chief Learning Architect of HTSA. “Most people are paralyzed by having that blank page in front of them because they don’t know how to start, and AI eliminates that blank page.”

To Esterly, the value in AI comes in being able to get people started on work faster, like priming a lawnmower before you pull the chord.

“At the absolute worst, you follow exactly what it says to a ‘T,’” he said. “But the best scenario, and the scenario that we’re trying to highlight amongst our members, is when AI gives you have something you never would have thought of otherwise as your springboard into whatever it is you’re creating.”

Breathe Easy, Next Year’s Going to be Big

It wasn’t all AI at the 2023 HTSA Fall Conference, however. In Monday’s opening address, Jon Robbins welcomed new additions DSI Luxury Technology, Kazar Audio Video and Partner Technology Systems to the group, as well as FXLuminaire and AiSPiRE as new vendor partners and Light Can Help You as a new service provider. The team also hosted the annual Vendor Awards Tuesday evening.

The gathered crowd also got a running of the numbers and a prediction I myself have heard on several separate occasions: ‘It’s going to be a rough one for the remainder of the year.’ It may not be the full-blown recession that we were all dreading, but it’s what Robbins is calling “an exhale year,” with the latter half of 2024 having the potential to open back up again for growth.

The group plans on rolling out a new purchasing platform—Enable—to better align dealers and vendors and unlock potential rebates for buyers. Being such a data-driven group, HTSA also noted that the platform is designed to give better insight into individual and group performance throughout the year.

The team also announced next year’s Lightapalooza, so for anyone who missed it this year and is interested in attending, clear out some time from February 26 to the 29 and book a flight to Phoenix, Arizona. Robbins said the group is expecting attendance to total 1,200 – 1,500 attendees, so they’re planning on it being even bigger than this year.

Closing out the 2023 HTSA Fall Conference, I did have one last question on my mind, however. Where do we go from here with AI? As a topic I’ve heard addressed multiple times now, each discussion on AI seems to perpetually serve as an introduction to the subject. The question I posed to Tom Doherty, Director of New Technology Initiatives at HTSA, was: how do we keep this going past initial introductions?

“AI right now is like the earliest days of the home theater,” Doherty says. “You have a handful of people working with what looks to be a technological marvel, and you have people flocking to these thought leaders to see how it all comes together. The challenge with AI moving forward is finding the right vehicle to continue delivering that thought leadership to the industry.”

For Doherty, that vehicle appears to be his next project of interest for HTSA members. It’s a bit of a ways off from completion, as he told me, but his plan to assemble a small committee on AI that would work on developing a 12-month strategy, as well as a month-by-month strategy on developing education and events surrounding AI.

Just hearing that “month-by-month” approach, it seems Doherty and the rest of the HTSA leadership team are anticipating wild growth in the technology leading into the new year.

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