Your Biggest Competitor Is Not Another Integrator. It Is Your Client's IT Department.

Here is a number that should concern every AV integrator in the business: 58% of AV end-user organizations now manage AV within the IT department. In corporate environments, that number rises to 67%.

Source: AVIXA MOAR (Market Opportunity Analysis Reports), based on five quarters of purchaser surveys, published by Sean Wargo, VP of Market Insight, April 2022.

This is not a prediction. This is the current state of the market. The IT department is not coming for your clients. It is already there.

How we got here

The shift happened gradually, then all at once. Unified communications and collaboration platforms reached $69.1 billion in revenue in 2024, growing 7.5% year over year. Microsoft Teams now has approximately 360 million monthly active users, with 93% of Fortune 100 companies on the platform. More than 1 million Microsoft Teams Rooms are deployed worldwide.

Sources: IDC Worldwide Unified Communications and Collaboration Forecast 2024-2028; Microsoft InfoComm 2024 announcement.

Zoom holds 55.91% of the global video conferencing market share with 300 million daily active users. Zoom Phone has surpassed 10 million paid seats.

What these numbers mean for integrators is straightforward. IT departments can now deploy a conference room by licensing Teams Rooms Pro and ordering certified hardware from a catalog. For basic rooms, they do not need you. The room system arrives pre-configured, connects to the corporate network, and gets managed through the same IT dashboard as laptops and printers.

The convergence is structural, not temporary

This is not a cycle that will reverse. IABM research presented at IBC 2025 found that 86% of the broadcast and media tech industry confirms AV-IT convergence is already impacting their organization. In the AV integration channel, the AVIXA data shows that even in venues and entertainment, the least IT-converged vertical, 39% of AV is managed by IT.

There is also a behavioral shift reinforcing the structural one. Approximately 30% of employees are hesitant to take meetings from meeting rooms due to discomfort with the technology, preferring their own laptops. This preference plays directly into the IT-managed, laptop-centric model and away from traditional AV room systems.

What IT departments cannot do

Here is the good news. IT departments are absorbing basic AV deployment, but they are not replacing AV expertise. They are replacing AV commodity.

IT cannot program a Crestron room. IT does not know the difference between a Shure MXA920 and an MXA910, or why that matters for ceiling height and coverage pattern. IT cannot design a boardroom where the CEO's voice sounds as clear on a Zoom call in Singapore as it does in the room. IT cannot troubleshoot an Extron switcher that is dropping HDCP handshakes on every third source change.

The integrators who survive and thrive through this convergence are the ones who double down on what IT cannot replicate: deep AV-specific technical expertise, delivered at scale, embedded in the client's workflow.

How to stay indispensable

The answer is not fighting IT. It is partnering with IT while offering what IT cannot build internally. Three specific plays work:

1. Offer AI-powered support that IT departments cannot match. A QR code in every conference room that connects to a support bot trained on the actual equipment in that room. Not a generic chatbot. An AI that knows the Rally Bar Mini, the Sony Bravia 4K, the Logitech Tap IP, and the specific firmware versions installed. IT departments do not have the AV knowledge to build this. You do.
2. Become the programming and integration layer. As rooms get more complex (Teams + Zoom interop, Crestron control, Biamp DSP, PTZ cameras), the programming and commissioning work gets harder, not easier. IT teams are generalists. Position your firm as the specialist that IT calls when the pre-configured room is not enough.
3. Turn your expertise into a scalable product. Your senior engineer's knowledge walks out the door every night. AI lets you capture that expertise in agents your entire team can use, and that you can offer to clients as a managed service. A knowledge base trained on every manufacturer manual you carry, searchable by anyone in plain English, is a product IT cannot replicate because they do not have the AV source material.

Platforms like AVCodex exist specifically for this: to let AV integrators build AI-powered tools trained on their own data, deployed under their own brand, accessible on their clients' websites, phones, and job sites. The integrator who shows up offering AI-powered room support alongside their integration services is not competing with IT. They are offering something IT needs but cannot build.

Sources cited

• AVIXA MOAR Study (Sean Wargo, 2022)
• IDC UC&C Forecast 2024-2028
• Microsoft InfoComm 2024
• Statista 2024
• Zoom FY2026
• IABM AV Media Convergence Briefing IBC 2025
• Owl Labs/Zoom behavioral surveys