Legrand's InfoComm strategy starts with the room, not the product. August 31, 2026 A conference room doesn't care which company made the mount. A professor doesn't want to think about camera framing while teaching. And the people walking into a retail or government space certainly aren't wondering which cable is carrying the signal. They just expect the room to work. That expectation was at the center of Legrand's presence at InfoComm 2026. Under the theme "Where Solutions Live," the company demonstrated how technologies spanning cabling, mounting, acoustics, conferencing, and display infrastructure can work together across classrooms, conference rooms, retail spaces, and government facilities. The bigger message wasn't about adding another product to the AV stack. It was about changing where the design conversation begins. Watch the conversation here. What does it actually take to make a room work? Legrand occupies an interesting position in Pro AV because many of its technologies sit behind the experience users actually notice. The display may command attention, and the camera may get credit for a better meeting, but there are plenty of components underneath that experience making everything possible. Kevin Olson of Legrand described that role this way: "We're a lot of the glue that makes a room work. And so we've looked at classrooms and commercial retail, Fed Gov, and conferencing, and all the products that we put into those rooms to make the rooms work and function for the teams that use them every day." That perspective changes the discussion from What product should AVNation Media, Inc. buy? to What does this room need to accomplish? It's an important distinction for end users. AV environments increasingly combine products and infrastructure that may traditionally have been considered separately: cameras, displays, mounts, cabling, acoustics, and control. Users experience all of those components as one room, so designing them independently can create problems that become obvious only after installation. Customers aren't shopping for boxes The second point Olson made may be even more important for integrators and manufacturers. Organizations generally aren't setting out to buy a mount, acoustic treatment, or cable because those products are exciting on their own. They're trying to create a classroom where remote students can follow the instructor, a conference room where meetings feel natural, or a retail environment where digital content works reliably. Olson said Legrand has adjusted how it approaches those conversations accordingly. "We've made a little shift of talking about products to, again, customers don't think about product, they think of how they're going to use it. And we've kind of talked about everything that goes into making those rooms work and be functional every day, everything from the cables to acoustics to mounts and everything in between." That shift sounds simple, but it addresses a persistent AV challenge. A room can contain excellent individual products and still deliver a poor experience if those products weren't selected and designed around how people actually use the space. Acoustics make their point on a noisy show floor One of the less obvious technologies Legrand demonstrated at InfoComm was acoustic treatment. The company created a quiet area inside its booth using wall and ceiling treatments. On a busy trade show floor, where controlling background noise is difficult, the demonstration gave visitors a direct way to experience what those products can do. It also reinforced Legrand's room-first argument. Acoustics aren't necessarily the first item buyers think about when planning a new collaboration space. Cameras, microphones, displays, and conferencing platforms tend to attract more attention. But poor room acoustics can undermine those investments quickly. A better microphone can help capture speech, but it cannot completely fix a room that was never designed with intelligibility in mind. Treating acoustics as part of the initial room design rather than an afterthought can change the performance of everything else installed there. Vaddio Speaker View takes camera operation off the user's plate Legrand also highlighted Vaddio Speaker View, designed to add automated active-speaker framing to classrooms and conference rooms. The value proposition here isn't simply better camera technology. It's reducing how much people have to manage while using the room. In a classroom, an instructor should be able to teach rather than worry about whether remote students can see whoever is speaking. In a meeting, participants should be focused on the discussion instead of adjusting cameras. Olson said Speaker View has been gaining traction for exactly those classroom and conference-room applications. That fits neatly into the broader trend toward AV systems that handle more of the experience automatically. The less users have to operate, troubleshoot, or even notice the technology, the closer the room gets to simply doing its job. Direct-view LED creates challenges beyond the display Legrand also showcased its mounting systems for direct-view LED, including a credenza-based system that supports the LED structure through the floor. Olson pointed to the system as another area generating interest at InfoComm. That's increasingly relevant as direct-view LED moves into more corporate and commercial environments. Selecting the display is only part of that decision. Organizations also have to consider structural support, mounting, installation, serviceability, cable management, and how the display fits physically into the room. In other words, the impressive part may be the LED wall everyone sees, but making it practical requires plenty of technology nobody sees. The room is the product users actually experience That may ultimately be the strongest takeaway from Legrand at InfoComm 2026. End users rarely experience AV as a collection of individual components. They experience a classroom, conference room, retail space, or government facility, and decide very quickly whether that space works. For AV teams, that makes the design question bigger than choosing the best camera, display, mount, or microphone individually. It means understanding how the pieces interact and, more importantly, whether they support what people actually need to do in the room. Legrand may describe itself as the "glue" holding those pieces together. But the more interesting idea is what happens when AV buyers stop starting with the equipment list altogether. Start with what the room needs to do. Then figure out what technology deserves to be in it.

The emerging paradox of Northern Ireland's AI story. John CampbellEconomics and business editor, BBC News NI In a converted aircraft hangar on the shores of Lough Foyle, local workers are helping to power the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. They are engineers for TES - a firm which has recently been bought by Legrand, one of France's largest industrial businesses. Legrand has acquired TES's expertise in designing and producing the electrical systems needed by AI data centres. These data centres are effectively warehouses full of computer servers which are central to the operations of AI businesses. When you use ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot the data centres are where the computing action really happens. These facilities require massive, uninterrupted power supply, not only to run the servers, but to fuel the sophisticated systems that keep them cool. Companies like Microsoft, Google and OpenAI have been investing billions of pounds in centres like these as they compete to create the fastest and most useful AI services. That means TES is facing huge demand for its products. "Astronomical," is how the managing director Michael Beagan describes the growth in the sector and the factory he runs in Ballykelly. "When we started on this site four years ago there was basically a team of two. We're now at about 175 employees and growing." The company is developing an apprenticeship scheme with the North West Regional College in nearby Limavady to create a pipeline of skilled workers. There is demand for those skills in other local businesses which also supply data centres. AI jobs across the island of Ireland. Vertiv this week announced it is creating 300 jobs at its facility across the border in Letterkenny, County Donegal. It is a US company which set up in Ireland five years ago when it bought E&I Engineering from the Londonderry businessman Philip O'Doherty, making him one of the wealthiest people in Ireland. Seagate, another US-owned manufacturing business in the north west, is also reaping the benefits of AI investment. It makes hard disc drives which AI companies need to store the massive amounts of data which underpin their services. Its products are effectively sold out up until 2028 bringing some security to its 1,500-strong Derry workforce which went through a round of redundancies in 2024. Jobs under threat. So while the local operations producing the physical infrastructure of the AI boom are doing a roaring trade, other important parts of the NI economy look vulnerable. The case of the law firm Baker McKenzie helps illustrate the challenge. It is a big US company which, in 2014, chose Belfast as a service centre, providing business and professional support to its fee-earning lawyers around the globe. The centre has about 500 staff and is typical of the sort of back-office operation which has driven jobs and growth in the NI economy over the last decade. In February, the company announced it was embarking on a major AI-focused review that could result in the loss of up to 1,000 support jobs across it global operations. It said: "This review was aimed at rethinking the ways in which we work, including through our use of AI, introducing efficiencies, and investing in those roles that best serve our clients' needs." In Belfast that puts about 50 jobs under threat. This week it said it is cutting about 12% of jobs across its global operations so it can redirect resources into its "AI-first cybersecurity platform". It is not clear how many jobs are under threat locally but 12% would equate to about 60 roles. In the context of record NI private sector employment of 620,000 these are small numbers, but it suggests a direction of travel for these sorts of "knowledge processing" jobs. The economist, Dr Lisa Wilson, who specialises in labour markets, has been estimating the impacts of automation in a series of studies since 2019. Her work covers not just AI but other technologies like robotics. Her initial study suggested that that about 7% or 60,000 jobs in NI were at high risk of being lost to automation technologies. A further 58% were estimated as being at risk of substantial change to the tasks involved in their job over the medium term. She is due to update that research soon and has emphasised the need for a nuanced discussion about "what jobs are going to stay, what jobs are going to be created and how are they going to compare in terms of quality to the jobs that are lost". Helping local businesses navigate that transition is the focus of the Artificial Intelligence Collaboration Centre (AICC), a joint initiative by Ulster University and Queen's University Belfast designed to equip businesses and workers with practical AI skills. Its director David Crozier says they have worked with "every type of company you could imagine", not just technology focused software start-ups. These have included manufacturers trying to make better use of sensor data and a graphic design firm trying to speed up its workflow. Entrepreneurs Oonagh O'Reilly and Marie-Claire McGreevy have also worked with the AICC as they develop their business. They have created Mel, an AI-powered business development platform designed to help accountants and lawyers get better at selling their services and developing new clients. Oonagh says that AI creates a whole new range of opportunities to start and scale businesses in Northern Ireland. For McGreevy, collaborating with the AICC helped them understand the nuances of deploying AI safely and sustainably. "We had our eyes opened to the world of 'tokenomics' - understanding how much it's going to cost in the long term to deploy AI within our system, and how to use it strategically." The emerging paradox of Northern Ireland's AI story is becoming clear. The hardware builders are riding a record-breaking high, but the broader professional services workforce must adapt as AI evolves from a distant technology into an everyday workplace reality. A spokesperson for the Department for the Economy said AI "presents significant opportunities" for the economy. "We are working with partners across education, industry and government to support AI capability through a range of initiatives including the £16.3 million Artificial Intelligence Collaboration Centre, Assured Skills Academies and ensuring wider skills programmes remain responsive to technological change," they added. "An AI advisory panel has been established by the economy minister and the department is "working closely with the Office of AI and Digital in The Executive Office on the development of the public sector AI Strategy, which is currently out for consultation".