Think about investing big sums in a large-format show for a classroom or boardroom at present – solely to search out it can’t assist the collaboration instruments, safety protocols, or AI-driven purposes your organisation depends on in 5 years’ time.
That’s the threat many schooling establishments and enterprises try to keep away from as they navigate a market saturated with AI bulletins and speedy {hardware} innovation.
Chatting with UC Right this moment on the sidelines of the latest ISE 2026 in Barcelona, Lance Solomon, Chief Product Officer at Promethean, urged consumers to look past headline-grabbing AI options and refocus on fundamentals.
“The tendencies are most likely ones that everybody is aware of about,” Solomon defined. “It’s adaptability, it’s safety, it’s longevity.”
In classes similar to interactive panels and digital signage, he famous, organisations are making important capital investments.
These units are anticipated to perform for 5, seven, even ten years. The problem is guaranteeing they continue to be safe, suitable, and related all through that lifecycle.
Giant-Format Shows As Lengthy-Time period Infrastructure
In contrast to laptops or smartphones, interactive shows will not be refreshed each few years. As soon as put in on the entrance of a classroom, lecture theatre, or assembly room, they develop into core infrastructure.
That longevity is each a bonus and a strain level.
Clients are more and more asking whether or not at present’s {hardware} will preserve tempo with tomorrow’s software program. Functions utilized in schooling and enterprise environments are evolving quickly. Synthetic intelligence options are being embedded into collaboration platforms, productiveness suites, and content material creation instruments at pace.
Solomon emphasised that organisations need assurance their units will proceed to run these purposes successfully.
“So clients wish to guarantee that if this factor’s going to perform [for] 5, seven or ten years, is it going to maintain up, each from the safety of the system, however in addition to how lengthy will the purposes proceed to run, whether or not it’s lecture rooms or workplaces or lecture halls.”
That query extends past processing energy.
It consists of working system flexibility and ecosystem compatibility.
Trendy environments hardly ever standardise on a single platform. Some organisations are firmly embedded in Home windows environments, others favour ChromeOS, whereas Android continues to play a big position in show know-how.
Promethean’s method, in accordance with Solomon, has been to satisfy clients the place they’re – supporting a number of working techniques and permitting organisations to decide on how units are managed and deployed.
The target shouldn’t be merely to promote {hardware}, however to supply a platform that integrates easily into current IT methods.
Safety And Longevity: Two Sides Of The Similar Coin
If adaptability is one pillar of buying selections, safety is the opposite.
As shows develop into smarter and extra related, in addition they develop into potential entry factors into wider networks.
For colleges dealing with pupil information or enterprises managing confidential discussions, that threat can’t be ignored.
“I feel the most important [challenge] is safety, fairly frankly,” Solomon stated.
Safety, nevertheless, shouldn’t be a one-off function – it should endure for your complete lifespan of the system.
A panel designed to final a decade should additionally assist evolving safety requirements, patches, and protocols over that very same interval.
This creates a decent hyperlink between longevity and safety. {Hardware} that can’t accommodate future updates dangers turning into susceptible lengthy earlier than it bodily wears out.
Consumers are subsequently scrutinising distributors’ roadmaps. They need readability round software program assist, replace cycles, and the way units will adapt as new cybersecurity necessities emerge.
In a local weather of accelerating regulatory scrutiny and heightened consciousness of cyber threats, safety is not an optionally available additional. It’s central to buying conversations in each schooling and enterprise markets.
In lots of instances, organisations additionally need flexibility in how they handle units. Some desire centralised administration instruments, whereas others prioritise open integration with their current IT infrastructure.
AI Should Resolve Actual Issues
With AI dominating exhibition halls throughout ISE 2026, the temptation is perhaps to imagine that extra AI robotically equals extra worth.
Solomon disagrees.
“Before everything, [you need to ask] is the AI product fixing that?” he stated, referring to buyer ache factors. “Second is, once more, safety. There [can be] information privateness points. And the way do these options deal with information privateness?”
In different phrases, AI should tackle real wants – whether or not that’s streamlining lesson supply, enhancing assembly collaboration, or enhancing system administration – somewhat than serving as a advertising hook.
Interoperability can also be essential. Most organisations already depend on established productiveness instruments and collaboration platforms.
AI options should combine into these workflows somewhat than disrupt them.
One other rising concern is whether or not AI options can coexist.
As organisations experiment with a number of AI-powered instruments, they’re more and more asking how these techniques work together.
Does one platform leverage one other’s capabilities? Are information insurance policies aligned? Can instruments function inside a broader ecosystem with out creating silos?
These questions mirror a maturing market. Quite than chasing novelty, consumers are evaluating AI by the lens of operational match and long-term viability.
Whole Value Of Possession In An AI-Pushed Market
Value pressures are additionally shaping decision-making.
Part costs for know-how merchandise have been influenced by surging demand from AI information centres, which depend on related processing and reminiscence elements. This has had a knock-on impact on each enterprise and schooling know-how budgets.
Whereas schooling – notably Okay-12 – stays extremely price-sensitive, Solomon famous that each sectors are more and more targeted on whole price of possession somewhat than upfront pricing alone.
“It’s not simply the fee on day one,” he defined. “It’s the fee over the lifetime of the product.”
That features the expense of upgrading compute modules, adapting to new AI capabilities, and sustaining compliance with evolving safety requirements. A decrease preliminary worth could show extra expensive if {hardware} requires frequent updates or early alternative.
Promethean’s latest product developments, together with its D-Sequence digital signage and ActivePanel 10, are designed with that lifecycle in thoughts.
The corporate is increasing past its conventional Okay-12 base into company assembly rooms and better schooling lecture halls, tailoring {hardware} and software program to function throughout different environments.
The technique displays a broader market actuality: clients need alternative, flexibility in working techniques, system administration approaches, and deployment fashions.
They usually need assurance that their funding won’t “age out” as AI continues to evolve.
