What do regulators want from standards?

IEC E-tech

How do legislators use IEC Standards and conformity assessment? Ahead of the IEC General Meeting (GM) in Hamburg, we ask regulators around the world for their feedback.

article here

A key question which will be addressed at the IEC GM in Hamburg is how independent standardization and regulators can work effectively together. The relationship between regulation and standards is becoming increasingly important as technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) connected products, software-defined systems and digital infrastructure evolve faster than traditional rulemaking processes.

Regulators need standards bodies to provide expert, up-to-date technical solutions. Standards organizations, on the other hand,  rely on regulatory feedback to identify emerging risks, safety issues and market needs. Stronger collaboration helps maintain consumer trust and supports innovation. It also reduces barriers to international trade and ensures global interoperability. It protects against fragmented national requirements and duplicated testing and regulatory uncertainty. This cross fertilization between regulation and standards allows products to reach markets more efficiently while meeting consistent safety, performance and public-interest objectives.

“Standards turn complexity into practical action,” says Pouline Terpager, Director of International Policy at Danish Standards. “They support compliance, safety, innovation and efficiency by providing recognized methods and a common language. But we also need standards that are faster to develop, less ambiguous and easier to use across sectors.”

Terpager along with senior executives at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Singapore’s Competition and Consumer Commission (CCS) share their views on how regulation and standardization complement each other and shape trust.

Eric Franca, Director for the Conformity Assessment Program (CAP) and Assistant Director at the Division of Standards and Conformity Assessment (DSCA) at the US FDA.

How do IEC Standards help the FDA in its work?

Consensus standards play an important role in supporting medical device premarket submissions. The FDA leverages these national and international standards through our recognition process to help streamline our premarket review and thus speed patient access to safe and effective medical devices. From the IEC 60601‑1 series of standards and more, the FDA is committed to helping develop regulatory-ready standards that we can recognize. We need manufacturers to  declare conformity to them in order to support FDA pre-market submissions and bring safe and effective medical devices to patients.

The Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) also modelled the Accreditation Scheme for Conformity Assessment (ASCA) Programme off international and national conformity assessment (CA) programmes, including the IEC CB Scheme operated by IECEE (the IEC System of Conformity Assessment Scheme for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components). Schemes like these help us to increase our confidence in the CA activities and can help streamline what we need to look at before a device can access the US market.

What would you like to see in future standards development?

FDA and CDRH support prioritizing the development of regulatory-ready standards, meaning that standards should strive to have clearly defined methodology that is easily reproducible across competent CA bodies. This includes clearly defined acceptance or pass/fail criteria and uniform expectations for reporting results from the testing. Ideally, that is a goal that can be achieved across standards development organizations and with relative speed in relation to the technology it is standardizing.

Having regulatory-ready standards may not only improve how standards use is conveyed to regulatory authorities, but it may also improve how CA bodies demonstrate their competencies in testing to standards covering these highly complex technologies. One of the strengths of the IEC is having the IECEE testing report form (TRF) working groups operate with the standards development process. This critical element helps ensure that the standards translate well to CA activities.

Do standards accelerate or put the brake on innovation? 

There are instances where the standards community has responded very quickly to a global need, such as the COVID pandemic which saw a speedy publication of standards to address global needs like ASTM F3502 Standard Specification for Barrier Face Coverings, first published in early 2021 or ISO 80601‑2‑90  for high flow nasal cannula which was published within about a year of the approval of the new work item proposal. However, there are cases where innovation moves quite rapidly and the development of standards, in particular regulatory-ready standards, takes a bit more time - which I would characterize as placing a controlled mechanism in place to measure for safety and provide harmonized approaches to market entry.

Look no further than AI. This is an area where the development and use of the technology is moving extremely quickly and standards development is moving at a more deliberate pace. This is understandable. It’s more important to take time to get the testing or methods in the standards to a point where consensus can be achieved than it is to publish something quickly that doesn’t serve the use of the technology.

At the same time, regulators are also interested in seeing how testing new, emerging technologies under competent pathways, in which we have confidence, can provide assurance for improving and protecting public health. Ultimately, having regulatory ready standards that have the necessary testing or methods built in, while keeping pace with evolving technology as quickly as possible, would be beneficial.

Pouline Terpager, Director of International Policy at Danish Standards

What would you like to see in future standards?

We need standards that are faster to develop, less ambiguous and easier to use across sectors. Online development tools and SMART, machine-readable standards can help companies integrate requirements directly into compliance systems and wider business frameworks. Digital tools, however, must preserve consensus and quality. Also, a deep cooperation between IEC and ISO is needed to address the challenges brought up by many new technologies such as Quantum, AI, etc.

How can the synergy between standards and regulation be achieved consistently and globally going forward?

Consistency requires a clear allocation of roles. Regulators should define public-interest objectives; standards organizations should develop voluntary technical solutions through transparent and inclusive processes that might support legislation. These roles should not be confused. The EU’s New Legislative Framework is based on this approach and has been a tremendous success and a model for regulators in other parts of the world. International standards used in this way lead to a pathway for easy trade across the globe, without unnecessary red tape.

The EU is about to revise the New Legislative Framework and the way it works with standards in support of legislation. I hope that the revision will continue its approach based on the use of  international standards, whenever relevant for public objectives to continue to support a well-integrated and safe European and global market.

What role can international standards play in supporting innovation while ensuring trust, safety and market access?

Innovation creates value when it can scale. International standards provide common terminology, interfaces, test methods and safety principles. They also play a role in lowering entry costs and opening markets. A Danish analysis found that companies buying standards subsequently achieved stronger growth than companies which didn’t: on average, they had 12% higher exports after one year and 8% higher revenue after four years.

Standards also build trust. In a Danish survey on ISO/IEC 27001, 84% said it helped with legal and compliance requirements, 87% gained a shared overview of risks and 71% reported more trusted relationships with external stakeholders.

IEC 60364 on low-voltage electrical installations is a concrete example of this. Its European adoption, HD 60364, is referenced in Danish rules, showing how an international foundation can support regional and national regulation.

Beatrice Wong, Director for the Product Safety, Weights and Measures Division, at the Competition and Consumer Commission (CCS) of Singapore   

How do you view the relationship between standards and regulatory objectives?

Laws and standards play different but complementary roles. Legislation establishes safety obligations, regulatory authority and consequences for non-compliance. Standards provide the technical benchmarks and test methods that support consistent implementation so that enterprises have greater certainty in their business practices and costs.

Legislative references to standards should be clear and kept up-to-date as regulatory and technical issues evolve. This can be achieved if regulators have a meaningful voice in standards development. They can contribute timely evidence from incidents and market surveillance. They can also raise implementation issues and emerging risks with the relevant technical committees. Standards developers, in turn, should give regulators access to appropriate technical expertise, helping standards to remain globally relevant and forward-looking.

Global consistency should mean common safety objectives and technical foundations, with justified, transparent and proportionate national adaptations where necessary. Standards should also remain responsive to technological change and real-world product experience, particularly as products increasingly combine electrical functions with software, connectivity and AI. Safety is assessed at the whole-product level and against a reasonably foreseeable use.

Do standards accelerate innovation or slow it down?

Well-designed standards can accelerate innovation by establishing clear safety principles and test methods. This gives innovators a clear understanding of the outcomes their products need to achieve, reducing uncertainty for product designers. It also builds consumer and regulatory confidence in emerging technologies and facilitates access to multiple markets.

However, standards can constrain innovation when they prescribe established designs too narrowly or are not updated quickly enough. Emerging products may combine functions or use operating principles that are not fully anticipated by existing standards. From a competition perspective, standards should also avoid unnecessarily favouring particular technologies or approaches. Where standards are sufficiently open and objective, businesses remain free to compete on how best to meet the required outcomes, which can in turn support innovation and the development of alternative solutions.

To remain enabling rather than restrictive, safety standards should focus on hazards, safety outcomes and reasonably foreseeable use. The standards development system should also provide practical routes for addressing genuinely novel products. IEC Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) can provide a faster route for addressing rapidly evolving technologies because they may be approved through a simpler process than a full international standard. A continuing challenge is securing timely participation from suitably qualified technical experts to keep standards responsive without compromising technical rigour.

How important is national flexibility for global standards?

A global standard delivers the greatest value when its core safety objectives and technical requirements are applied consistently across jurisdictions. Unnecessary national deviations can increase compliance costs, duplicate testing and reduce the benefits of international standardization.

At the same time, some national flexibility is necessary due to differences in local operating conditions, infrastructure and regulatory experience. These may include the voltage and frequency of the standard electricity supply, climate, national plug and socket systems, installation practices or risks identified from local incident and market surveillance experience.

Singapore therefore uses international standards as the technical foundation, supplemented where necessary by clearly stated local requirements. For example, Controlled Goods in Singapore may need to be assessed for operation at 230 alternating current volts (VAC) and 50 Hertz, to meet applicable tropical-condition testing. And they will also use appropriate plugs or fixed wiring arrangements in compliance with local requirements.

National adaptations should be risk-based, transparent and technically justified as well as limited to what is necessary. From a competition perspective, national adaptations should also avoid creating unnecessary barriers to market entry or disadvantaging particular suppliers or technologies without objective justification. This helps preserve the benefits of international standardization while ensuring that legitimate local regulatory needs are addressed.

Where a local issue is also relevant to other jurisdictions, there should be a mechanism to feed the evidence back into the international standards process so the global standard can evolve accordingly.

How do you and your team work with IEC Standards?

IEC Standards form an important part of Singapore’s consumer product safety framework. Under the Consumer Protection (Safety Requirements) Regulations, specified categories of household electrical and gas appliances and accessories are regulated as controlled goods. Before controlled goods can be supplied to consumers in Singapore, they must be tested to the specified safety standards, registered with the CCS Consumer Product Safety Office and carry a safety mark. Many are based on IEC standards, including IEC 60335‑2‑24 for refrigerators or IEC 60335‑2‑35 for instantaneous water heaters.

We adopt a risk-based CA approach. Depending on the product’s risk level, registration may require type testing supported by either a supplier’s declaration or independent certification. Singapore recognizes test reports issued under internationally recognized accreditation arrangements, including the IECEE CB Scheme, helping to streamline CA and reduce unnecessary repeat testing.  This approach reflects our view that international standards applied in the appropriate national context support both consumer safety and efficient market access.

 

BTS - Wild Horse Nine

IBC

Martin McDonagh writes specifically for places and characters that inspire him, and Easter Island could not simply be recreated elsewhere, DoP Ben Davis explains

article here

Isolated in the Pacific, 2,300 miles from the mainland, Rapa Nui provides an extraordinary setting for Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine. Its green hills, violent history and monumental moai statues establish a world that is both beautiful and unsettling, reflecting the film’s blend of political intrigue, dark comedy and emotional complexity.

The location itself was non-negotiable, explains cinematographer Ben Davis BSC.

“Martin wouldn't have made the film anywhere else. It was only ever going to be on Easter Island.”

Working with McDonagh for the fourth time after Seven Psychopaths; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; and The Banshees of Inisherin, Davis says the director typically develops a project privately before bringing collaborators into the process.

“I'm used to working on films where they’re still writing the script as you're making it but never with Martin. He has usually told me about the project that's in his head as a general outline but he’ll only send me the script once he's completely happy with it and that's exactly what we make.”

Wild Horse Nine is set in 1973, shortly before the CIA-backed coup which toppled Chilean president Salvador Allende. The story evolved considerably from an earlier version that was also set on Easter Island but featured different characters and a different historical period.

“This is far more political than anything he's made,” Davis suggests. “It was only after Martin went there and spent some time in Chile that he realised what he wanted to say. I guess there's a lot of anger in what we see in politics at the moment, so this story was a response to what's going on in the world since making Banshees.”

Davis himself had visited Easter Island for a week in 1999 giving him a head-start in imagining the script playing out.

“From the first outset I felt both Martin and I wanted it to have colour and contrast and we wanted you to feel this big juxtaposition between Santiago and Easter Island.”

To develop the look, he took several cameras on a location scout, including a stills camera loaded with Kodak Ektachrome, a Super 8 camera also loaded with Ektachrome, and a digital camera.

“It was the same process with Banshees [where Irish west coast island Inis Mór was a principal location for the fictional Inisherin]. When you go there, naturally there's a lot of weather and it can be very windswept with slate-grey seas and overcast.”

He says they wanted to contrast the island’s beauty with the melancholic mood of Chris, one of two bickering CIA protagonists (played by John Malkovich, the other by Sam Rockwell), holidaying among the moai.

“Chris is a man coming to the end of his life and trying to comes to terms with what he has done. There's a line of dialogue about a college student he has met on the island where he says ‘She's life and I’m leaving it’ which I think speaks to a part of all of us that becomes very aware of the beauty of the world that we’re leaving. So it was very important that the island felt like that, with big punches of colour.”

Another idea that Davis pitched to McDonagh was to evoke the 1970s strongly enough that audiences might imagine the film had been photographed in the period, “without making the imagery excessively nostalgic or reverential.”

To achieve this the production shot on a mix of film and digital. The principal camera was the ARRI Alexa 35, with select scenes captured on 16mm and Super 8mm film.

The opening sequence establishes this layered approach. Archival 16mm footage of crowds cheering Allende’s electoral victory in the Plaza de Armas de Santiago in 1970 bleed into the dramatised narrative shot at the same location on Super 8mm.

“It was very important we get that right. It’s always tricky to balance exteriors in bright sun to a darker interior, but here we also segue from grainy library footage into the Super 8 which is an integral element of the film.”

The Super 8 material is nominally shot by Chris as a home video accompanied by his narrated introspection. Davis also used a 16mm camera to capture dusk scenes and details of the island that he felt were important to the story (some of it tuned in post to resemble Super 8) while aerial photography is used to establish the island itself. Davis briefed a drone operator and pilot to film an “arsenal of shots” for coverage.

“If you shoot an island from land you could be anywhere but to show you’re on an island and how isolated it is, you kind of need to remove yourself photography from the ground.”

Although there were opportunities for elaborate camera movement, much of Wild Horse Nine unfolds through extended conversations, often between two characters in a car or sitting at a table.

“You could circle around them and do funky moves, but this isn't that sort of film. The cinematography has to serve the story. If you started to notice what the camera's doing, then I've failed in some way because you should really be listening to what they're saying.”

Davis and ‘A’ camera operator Des Whelan frequently worked with two cameras and shot multiple takes, allowing McDonagh and editor Mikkel E.G. Nielsen to explore different emotional registers in performance.

“The idea was to give editorial a wealth of coverage so that they had control over the rhythm of the film and options to cut these intense conversations with wider visual counterpoints.”

Davis chose vintage Super Baltar lenses for their distinctive rendering and gentle fall-off, favouring their imperfections over a more clinical image. He also carried Cooke lenses, switching to them particularly when characters were positioned towards the edges of the frame.

Achieving consistency across the acquisition formats required extensive preparation, not least because of the distance the production was from any post facility, let alone a lab.

He developed a LUT with Goldcrest colourist Adam Glasman, referencing the colour photography of William Eggleston, and in post worked on “isolating colours that you want to punch, like the red car, to sort of leap off the screen at you.

“Ektachrome really lends itself to colour so then we had to find a way of getting the digital to look like Ektachrome and it was a long process. It doesn't come naturally to get it that way.”

Davis elaborates, “I really do like shooting digitally but there are certain things that film does better. Particularly in the colours of day exterior where you're looking at these deep blues, these greens and this punchy red - film just does that right out the bat. You develop it, it comes back and you go ‘Wow! that looks great.’ To get the DI to look like that you have to work a little bit in post.”

Supported by Cinelab Film & Digital, dailies were sent to London where Glasman arranged remote grading sessions with the DP “just to tweak things. Generally we set up with a look we wanted and didn't do any messing around with it on set. The costumes and sets were all predetermined and tested.”

The Super 8 and 16mm rushes were only shipped to Cinelab at the end of ten weeks’ principal photography. “Fingers crossed, it was alright.”

Later Cinelab performed a Digital-Film-Digital (DFD) process, transferring the graded digital images onto 35mm film negative before scanning them back into the digital workflow. The transfer was made onto Kodak 50D stock.

Davis explains, “It just broke up the highlights in the digital footage and gave it more of the softer character we wanted. When you’re looking at hot sun on sea you get a lot of specular highlights which on film just works but on digital you can be left with hard hot lights, back lights or shiny faces. That’s a wonderful thing that film does that we had to try and emulate later.”

Much of the film’s budget went on the logistics of getting equipment to the island, including period cars. “We had to be very frugal with what we brought and that included a very small crew,” he says.

The production built two hotel rooms as an annex to an existing hotel on the island.  These accommodate substantial interior and exterior action, allowing the production to preserve the physical continuity and authenticity that Davis says McDonagh values.

“Everything with Martin has to be genuine. There could never be a combination of a plate shot on location with a set build. He writes specific to a location and to a specific cast.”

A national park representative and an archaeologist accompanied the crew, access to certain areas was restricted (some heads are also burial grounds), and camera equipment was kept away from protected sites.

Davis believes that, despite the irreverence of some characters’ dialogue, the film treats the island and its people with respect.

“The heads are sort of silent observers. They all share the same facial expression, like a slight grin, whatever they're looking at. We also have animals in Martin’s films – horses in thie case - which are innocent victims and also silent observers of characters that I don't think you're supposed to love.

“I think you're supposed to love and respect their friendship, which is really endearing, but they’ve both killed a lot of people. They've done some despicable things in their lives. So the whole island could be seen as silent character commenting on them in some way.”

How to build trust in the AI era

IEC e-TECH

article here

The accelerating pace of change brought on by artificial intelligence (AI) is challenging IEC existing models for building trust. As will be discussed at the IEC General Meeting(GM) in Hamburg, standards and conformity assessment (CA) are evolving to adapt to this new landscape.

Standards are often invisible to the people who rely on them, yet they underpin the confidence that products will work together, operate safely and perform as expected. But rapid technological change as a result of digitalization and the widespread use of AI is challenging the traditional ways in which conformity to standards is assessed. 

“Standardization and CA bring tremendous value by providing trust in new technology,” says Wolfram Zeitz, Executive Secretary of two of the IEC CA Systems, IECEE (The IEC System of Conformity Assessment Schemes for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components) and IECRE (the IEC System for Certification to Standards Relating to Equipment for Use in Renewable Energy Applications).

“What has changed is the speed of development. In the past, product cycles took up to three years before prototypes appeared,” he adds. “Now change happens far, far quicker and this creates a feeling of uncertainty. Consumers lose trust when they think development was rushed and conformity is not being adhered to.”

Henrike Gördes, Head of Governance at DKE, the organization hosting this year’s GM agrees: “a product that conforms to relevant standards provides assurance that it will behave in predictable ways and interact appropriately within a wider technological ecosystem.This ability to create trust has been one of the foundations of the success of standardization over many years. But maintaining that trust is becoming more challenging as technology changes at an accelerating pace.”

The potential undermining of a standards-based order is particularly acute when software, data or AI can alter a product's behaviour. The question is no longer simply whether the product was safe when it was tested. It is also how organizations can ensure that it remains safe and operates as intended following updates, changes in data or advances in AI, which are happening faster and faster.

Keeping pace with AI

The problem with attempting to standardize systems and products in an emerging environment is that the technology may not be mature enough to stabilize. “Particularly for AI, we don’t yet have industrial consensus on the technological framework,” says Zeitz. “AI tools are using different technological setups almost daily. Standardization and conformity assessment are struggling to keep up with the speed of development.”

Facial recognition, for instance, is increasingly used across borders, transport, finance and access control, creating a need for robust standards to ensure security, reliability and responsible use. International standards including  ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 30107 and ISO/IEC 19795‑10 address information security, biometric performance, anti-spoofing and bias. IEC and ISO’s work is evolving to cover AI, deepfakes and remote biometric identification. The IEC/ISO committee which prepares standards for AI, ISO/IEC SC 42, develops a wide number of documents helping to establish trust in AI across different areas, and has for instance published ISO/IEC 5339, which provides guidance for identifying the context, opportunities and processes for developing and applying AI applications.

However, there is not yet a comprehensive CA framework to demonstrate that facial recognition systems meet these standards, as the technology is still evolving rapidly and standards are still a high-level framework. “In AI we are currently at a stage comparable to asking for detailed standards and conformity assessment for airplanes at the time of Lindbergh,” says Zeitz. “The technology is not yet stable enough to properly design specifications and detailed criteria.That’s the tricky part. I wouldn’t call it ‘lagging behind,’ but the synchronization between technological development and standards and conformity assessment is not yet in place.”

Progress is being made. CASCO, the ISO committee for CA, is working with ISO/IEC SC 42 on ISO/IEC 42007, a draft standard offering a high-level framework and guidance for the development of CA schemes for AI systems. Cyber security is one of the challenges related to AI and in this area the IECEE Industrial Cyber Security Programme, which is based on the IEC 62443 series of standards, is already well established.

A new pilot CA programme has also recently been initiated with IEC TC 62, the technical committee which prepares standards for medical devices, looking at how AI can be assessed. 

All new technologies need to be trusted

While AI is very much the focus of global attention, a host of new technologies required in our evolving world - notably to meet net zero targets - also require standards and CA to be used safely and effectively. Different countries around the world need to trust that manufacturers providing the tech and products meet the appropriate benchmarks. The difference is that these technologies are not evolving at the same pace as AI-based systems and therefore are easier to assess.

For instance, IECEE provides a testing and certification scheme for electric vehicle (EV) battery systems, assessing their safety, performance, interoperability, energy efficiency, electromagnetic compatibility and hazardous substances. It also operates a specific EV programme, which can test and certify charging systems, stations and plugs against relevant IEC Standards, including the IEC 62196‑1 and the IEC 61851 series.

IECEE is also the go-to body to ensure that solar panels and components are safe and perform according to plan through its National Certification Bodies and recognized testing laboratories. The system relies on IEC Standards for module performance, durability and safety. IEC 61215 covers design qualification and type approval of terrestrial photovoltaic (PV) modules, while IEC 61730 addresses electrical and mechanical safety through construction and testing requirements.

IECRE was established a little more than ten years ago to help provide third party certification and testing services for all power plants producing, storing, or converting energy from wind, marine and solar PV energy. The CA system ensures that the essential quality and safety requirements in standards are met, and as a consequence, that a reliable performance can be expected from all these systems. For the wind sector, for example, that means checking that the industry aligns with the IEC 61400 standards, developed by IEC TC 88, the technical committee which produces standards for wind energy systems.

Conformity assessment is evolving

Traditionally CA has often followed a relatively linear model: a product is developed, tested and assessed, and then the assessment provides assurance about that product. Digital and AI-based technologies complicate this. “Take the introduction of autonomous control in cars, for example. You could have a software update that basically changes the way the self-driving vehicle operates,” says Gördes.

This raises an important question for conformity assessment: what does it mean to demonstrate that a product remains safe and performs as intended when the product itself can continue to change? “Rather than assessing a product only at a particular point in its development, assessment needs to take account of what happens throughout the product's lifecycle,” Gördes says.

DKE advocates a shift from a linear model of CA towards a more continuous, cyclical approach. “Such an approach could help connect CA more closely with the reality of digital products, where development, deployment, updating and monitoring can form an ongoing process rather than a sequence that ends when a product is first assessed.”

The aim, as outlined in this DKE white paper, is to develop an approach that better reflects products and technologies that can change throughout their operational life.

DKE is working with stakeholders from different industries and in cooperation with DIN and VDE, Germany’s national standards bodies, to develop the concept. “DKE has a strong interest in ensuring that emerging thinking can ultimately contribute to international standardization,” Gördes says.

Independent assessment is essential to ensure trust

The international dimension matters because standards and CA operate across markets. Manufacturers, regulators and users need confidence that assurance mechanisms are meaningful not only within individual national systems but across increasingly global technology ecosystems.

“Our entire framework of requirements is based on international agreements and consensus,” explains Zeitz. “Every member country, no matter how big or small, has the same voting rights. The voice of Germany or the US has the same weight as Kenya. This is embedded in our governance and this matters because the community and the public need to know that a requirement - whether technical or procedural - is not just the opinion of one party. International agreement and consensus building is a strong factor in trust.”

“Only third‑party assessment gives full independence,” Zeitz insists. “That’s why our CA systems rely on completely impartial laboratories, certification or inspection bodies. Only such a set-up can give the market full trust and confidence in the safety, efficiency and interoperability of the different products.”

 

Standards for global development

IEC e-TECH

article here

How does IEC work contribute to global development? E-tech delves into the major theme of this year’s General Meeting (GM) in Hamburg, with a special focus on Germany’s contributions.

Each developing country faces its own unique set of challenges. But international standards have a critical role to play in ensuring new technologies, such as clean energy, are applied to  meet those challenges in the most effective and economic way possible.

Germany is a key player

Germany is the world's largest contributor to international development aid, making EUR 26 billion (over USD 29 bn) in public development funding available in 2025, according to the OECD. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is the federal enterprise responsible for development.

Among the schemes it supports is EnDev (Energizing Development), a global partnership that has helped bring modern energy services to more than 36 million people around the world. “Quality standards and conformity assessment are critical to expanding access to clean energy technologies across developing markets,” says Till Serafimov, Technical Lead at EnDev. “Consumer trust is fundamental to market development. People will only adopt technologies if they believe they are safe, reliable and effective.”

The sustainable energy transition depends on technologies such as solar and wind power being safe, efficient and interoperable wherever they are deployed. “Whether a system is being used in Namibia or in Germany, common standards can help provide a basis for achieving shared goals with those technologies,” says Henrike Gördes, Head of Governance at DKE, the German National Committee of the IEC and host of this year’s IEC GM in Hamburg.

Contributing to global development starts with international cooperation, she says. “Standards developed in isolation cannot address technologies and supply chains that are increasingly cross border. International cooperation, participation and exchange are the foundation for developing standards that can support global development.”

EnDev’s standards-based approach to development

Funded by Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland and coordinated by GIZ and RVO, EnDev works to improve access to clean cooking technology and renewable electricity through a market-based approach. Rather than focusing solely on technology deployment, the programme seeks to build sustainable energy markets that can continue to grow independently. “Our core objective is to promote functioning markets,” explains Serafimov. “We believe that private sector-led market development is the most efficient and durable way to scale clean energy technologies.”

Standards and product quality sit at the centre of this strategy. “In many countries, early experiences with poor-quality cookstoves or solar products damaged consumer confidence and slowed market uptake. Without performance and safety standards, products can enter the market without adequate testing, damaging consumer confidence and, ultimately, slowing down market development.”

From clean cooking stoves to solar power

As a result, EnDev has invested heavily in strengthening testing infrastructure, standards development and certification systems. In Rwanda, for example, EnDev supported the Rwanda Standards Board , an ISO member, in developing testing capacity for clean cookstoves. Through investments in laboratory facilities, staff training and institutional development, certification timelines were reduced from around six months to just a few weeks. EnDev aligns its clean cooking work with international standards such as ISO 19867‑1 for biomass cookstoves and has supported similar initiatives in Madagascar, Benin, Sierra Leone and Bangladesh.

The organization is also increasingly focused on electric cooking (eCooking) which is gaining momentum as a pathway to cleaner household energy use. “eCooking can be emissions-free at the point of use,” Serafimov explains. “However, the growth of eCooking also requires the development and enforcement of appropriate technical standards.” EnDev works with organizations including Modern Energy Cooking Services, CLASP and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to promote standards for electric cookstoves and other energy efficient appliances across several African and Asian markets.

IEC is also supporting clean cooking on the ground. One of the projects of the organization’s Impact Alliance aims to accelerate access to clean cooking solutions in communities that need it most. “Household air pollution, mostly from cooking smoke, is linked to around 3,7 million premature deaths a year. Cleaner technologies such as electric cookstoves exist, but limited access to electricity remains a major barrier to their use. We aim to bring standardization and conformity assessment more prominently into this sector to ensure more people have access to clean cooking solutions,” says Dr Matthew Doherty, Senior Advisor for the IEC Impact Alliance.

Another Impact Alliance project is with Differ Community Power (DCP), an international provider of solar energy services, which repurposed used electric car batteries to revive dead or dormant solar panels at rural schools and health centres in Kenya. This scalable project is designed to connect communities and reduce e-waste at the same time.

Quality assurance is especially important in the solar sector. EnDev supports internationally recognized certification schemes such as VeraSol for pico-solar products and solar home systems, based on IEC Technical Specification 62257­­‑9‑8. The IEC 62257 series of technical specifications cover recommendations for small renewable hybrid systems for rural electrification. The series has been recognized by both the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the World Bank. The series can be accessed by developing nations at a much-discounted price.

IECEE, the IEC System of Conformity Assessment (CA) Scheme for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components, addresses 23 different product categories, including solar PV parts and modules, while IECRE, the IEC System for Certification to Standards Relating to Equipment for Use in Renewable Energy Applications, provides third party certification and testing services for all power plants producing, storing, or converting energy from wind, marine and solar PV energy. “The standards assess product quality and safety through rigorous testing,” Serafimov explains. Products are evaluated for durability, battery performance and safety, helping consumers distinguish reliable products from lower-quality alternatives.

“From EnDev’s perspective, conformity assessment is not simply a regulatory requirement," he says. “It is a core market-development tool. Without trusted testing and certification systems, consumers lose confidence, quality companies struggle to compete, and market growth is ultimately undermined.”

Digital product passports can be a tool for global development

The key contribution to cementing and progressing a global industrial circular economy is the Digital Product Passport (DPP), for the time being mostly a European initiative. DKE has contributed significantly to driving its development and, now, its adoption. Its potential depends on creating a trusted, interoperable infrastructure that works internationally.

“The DPP is an enabler of trust, particularly trust in data,” explains Gördes. “The innovation is not simply the passport itself but the infrastructure behind it. DPP is a trusted and interoperable way of exchanging information about products.” The passport is expected to provide information about a product across its lifecycle and supply chain - where materials and components come from, how a product was manufactured and other relevant information, including how it operates and when it may need to be reviewed.

A product may contain multiple materials and components, each with its own origins and supply-chain information. A DPP could create greater accountability in production. “A DPP is not a solution to every problem in global supply chains,” she says. “What it can do is provide better access to information. If someone wants to examine particular aspects of a product - its environmental impact, for example, or the people involved in its production - the DPP could provide access to relevant information from which conclusions can be drawn.”

DKE’s role is to contribute to that international standardization process, while working with government ministries and regulators. A significant step came with the inauguration of the new joint committee between ISO and IEC on DPPs, IEC/ISO JTC 5. “The challenge now is to build consensus,” Gördes says. “Different regions and markets have different views about what the initial focus of a DPP should be, what information should be transmitted and how the underlying infrastructure should operate. Regulators and stakeholders in Europe and Asia, for example, may have different requirements and expectations.”

Bringing those perspectives together will be essential if the DPP is to support different markets while maintaining international interoperability. “The real value lies in creating infrastructure through which information can be exchanged consistently and accessed by those who need it,” she says.

EnDev has not worked on DPPs in the EU regulatory sense. However, many elements of its work are aligned with the DPP logic: digital product and sales data, operational monitoring, traceability for results verification and after-sales information. All essential in a global development perspective.

 

Call my agent! Agentic AI begins buying media advertising

IBC

AI agents have the potential to automate media transactions at scale but today’s focus is less about fully autonomous workflows and more on experimentation and efficiencies.

article here

Agentic AI is rapidly gaining traction across connected TV (CTV) advertising, particularly behind the scenes where it is helping broadcasters and streaming platforms automate operational workflows, improve efficiency and accelerate new business models. However, according to executives from Bitmovin, Yospace and FreeWheel the industry is still in the early stages of understanding how agentic AI will fit into premium video buying and selling.

James Varndell, VP Product at Bitmovin, says operational adoption has accelerated significantly over the past six months.

“We're seeing agentic AI being used to speed up content preparation and enable more dynamic business models,” he explains.

A recent Bitmovin activation with Australia's Nine Entertainment is one example. The broadcaster wanted to introduce ad-supported streaming services and FAST channels alongside its subscription offering. Using AI tools, Nine analysed a library of approximately 17,000 assets to identify optimal ad break locations.

“Doing that manually would have taken a huge amount of time,” said Varndell. "By using AI agents, they were able to process the content much faster and launch their new ad-supported business significantly sooner.”

This shift reflects a broader trend across the industry.

“Rather than teams doing all the analysis themselves, agents are increasingly performing the analysis and then advertising teams review the output. It helps organisations move faster and operate more efficiently.”

According to Jeff Ellin, VP of Product Architecture at FreeWheel, the industry is still working through some fundamental questions around agentic buying and selling.

“People are trying to figure out what inventory they want to make available and what buyers actually want agents to do,” he says. “Do buyers want quick forecasts? Do they want to execute campaigns? Update campaigns? The idea of agents talking autonomously with each other is very real and will scale over time, but it's still very early.”

Testing the possibilities

FreeWheel, a Comcast-owned advertising technology company, participated in a proof-of-concept with NBCUniversal, agency RPA and Newton Research. Announced in January, the initiative demonstrated what the companies described as the first cross-platform agentic media buy spanning both linear television and streaming inventory. The initial execution centred on premium sports inventory, including NBC's Sunday Night Football.

Current implementations remain largely one-to-one. Buyers and sellers are building agents, connecting them and learning from initial deployments.

“Everyone is testing,” he says. “Some buyers are quite bullish on it, while others are more cautious.”

For live sports in particular, fully autonomous decision-making remains some distance away.

“The idea of agents autonomously agreeing a price for premium CTV inventory around something like SNF is not where the market is today,” Ellin says. “For lower-value, long-tail inventory, that might make more sense. For premium sports inventory, that's a very different conversation.

“Live sporting events are difficult to scale programmatically because of the speed and scale required," Ellin explains. “Sports actually became a really good use case because if I can sell inventory more directly and reduce reliance on SSPs and DSPs along the way, I may be able to solve some of those scaling challenges.”

Historically, a buyer might contact a sales representative to secure inventory. In the agentic workflow, a buyer interacted through a conversational interface, specifying the inventory requirements. The seller-side agent returned available inventory, and the buyer was able to complete the transaction through the automated workflow.

“The execution of the ad was exactly the same as it is today on Peacock,” says Ellin. “What changed was the way the transaction happened.”

New ad formats emerge

The real opportunity emerges when contextual intelligence is combined with live sports and emerging advertising formats such as squeeze-back ads. Unlike traditional overlays, squeeze-back ads resize programme content without obscuring it.

For example, AI could detect key moments during a football match, such as player substitutions, and trigger contextually relevant advertisements displayed alongside the live content.

ITV trialled the concept in during the 2026 Six Nations, where 20-second ads popped up during natural stoppages such as scrums. Even though this occurred just once per half reaction from fans was negative. The format was widely described as intrusive, with some supporters warning it risked damaging the viewing experience.

“Doing contextual analysis on live content introduces additional challenges, particularly around latency," Varndell says. “But we're seeing the technology mature quickly, and I expect we'll see more of these workflows move into live environments over the coming year.”

L-shaped squeeze-back ads positioned to the left or right of content and framed ads surrounding programme content are just two of a number of new standardised ad formats for CTV, being developed through IAB Tech Lab.

“The formats themselves have now been agreed," says Paul Davis, Head of Marketing at Yospace. “The work taking place this year is around creating the mechanisms required for trading, ad serving, measurement and reporting."

A key addition is dynamic QR code functionality, which introduces new attribution capabilities for television advertising.

“This allows advertisers to create a direct call to action and obtain a level of attribution that TV has previously lacked,” Davis explains.

The appeal of direct transactions

One of the biggest attractions of agentic buying is the possibility of creating more direct relationships between buyers and media owners.

“The way digital buying scaled outside of direct sales created a number of intermediaries," Ellin says. “The compelling idea for publishers is that if buyers can come directly to them at scale, some of those middlemen can potentially be removed.”

The result could be lower transaction costs, improved transparency and a greater share of media spend reaching publishers.

“Buyers traditionally want to get as close to the inventory source as possible,” he says. “You reduce the chances of fraud, technical issues and unnecessary hops in the supply chain.”

However, removing intermediaries also creates new challenges.

One example is frequency management. Today, buyers often use DSPs to control audience reach and frequency across multiple publishers. If transactions become entirely direct, each publisher would only manage frequency within its own environment.

“If I buy through a DSP across multiple publishers, I can control reach and frequency centrally," Ellin says. “If I go directly to individual publishers, I lose some of that control. These are exactly the kinds of problems the industry is trying to solve.”

Human oversight remains essential

Despite growing excitement around autonomous systems, most organisations remain risk-averse and want humans involved in decision-making.

“I don't see people simply letting agents run completely autonomously,” Ellin says. “Everything needs a human in the loop.”

AI can help scale monitoring processes to prevent unsuitable ad placements across vast content catalogues but even when AI agents are involved, “I still see humans making the final decision,” Varndell says. “The technology improves efficiency, but final sign-off typically remains with people.”

For many companies, practical workflow improvements are proving more attractive than full autonomous buying. Examples include campaign troubleshooting, delivery diagnostics and forecasting.

“Rather than having someone manually pull logs and investigate issues, AI can present what is wrong and suggest ways to fix it,” Ellin says. “Those are the kinds of use cases people are far more willing to adopt at scale right now.”

AI Connectors boost analytics

One area seeing particularly rapid progress is analytics.

Varndell highlighted recent developments around Model Context Protocol (MCP), which standardises how AI systems access and interact with data sources.

“AI systems can now connect directly to data through plug-ins and connectors," he explained. “We've built connectors for both ChatGPT and Claude.”

Bitmovin recently announced its availability as a Claude Connector, enabling users to query video and advertising data directly from within Anthropic's AI assistant.

According to Varndell, this dramatically lowers the barrier to data analysis.

“People who aren't data scientists can work with advertising data simply by asking questions rather than exporting spreadsheets and building complex formulas.”

The technology is particularly valuable for correlating data from multiple sources, such as video players and ad servers, helping organisations identify discrepancies and uncover performance insights more quickly.

Ellin says FreeWheel invested heavily in APIs allowing customers to build applications and workflows on top of FreeWheel's platform rather than relying entirely on its user interfaces and product roadmap.  

Recently, FreeWheel expanded this foundation through MCP-based infrastructure that enables AI agents to interact with platform services. The company is exposing these capabilities directly while also integrating AI-driven tools into existing user interfaces for customers not yet ready to build their own agents.  

“We want clients who are embracing AI to have complete flexibility in what they build,” Ellin says. “But we're also building similar capabilities directly into our platform for people who still prefer to work through a UI.

“Historically, software was built for departments,” he says. “What excites me is allowing individual users to create solutions that match exactly how they work.”

Two people in the same ad operations team may complete the same task differently. Through AI-enabled infrastructure, each could create personalised tools while still achieving the same business outcome.

Ellin says, “We're very bullish on what organisations and individuals will be able to create over time, beyond just agentic buying and selling.”

Relationships drive success in Latin America

AV Magazine

article here

 

Close relationships with local suppliers, distributors and contractors can save a project from catastrophic failures in Latin America

Stretching from Tijuana in Mexico to Ushuaia in the southern tip of Argentina, Latin America is a huge region for which there is no ‘one size fits all’. The entire region is dynamic but exhibits different potential and characteristics depending on where you look. The clearest signal is the industry’s own, the first InfoComm América Latina, held in Mexico City in 2025, sold out. This October’s edition has expanded floor space by around 60%.

“Brazil and Mexico have a large volume of projects with very high demands and requirements,” offers Adi Neves at DPA Microphones. “Argentina, Chile and Colombia exhibit the same demands, among fewer projects. Central America is growing; Panama leads the corporate market and Guatemala benefits from a strong Houses of Worship vertical as it has some of the Americas’ largest sanctuaries. Colombia and Chile drive some of the largest growth in the area, supported by progressive business outlook and foreign investments.”

AVIXA analysis
AVIXA’s 2025 analysis forecasts Latin America CAGR at 4.3% through to 2030, against 3.9% globally and 3.6% for North America, for a market worth around $14bn. Demand concentrates in conferencing and collaboration, the largest category; security and surveillance, the fastest-growing; live events and digital signage.

“Two things hold it back: tariff and currency complexity, and the fact that AV and IT expertise have historically sat in separate organisations,” says Moises Montano, sales director, Netgear Enterprise. “I would not put that second one on the integrators. Our job as manufacturers is to make configuration simple enough that networked AV behaves correctly without deep networking knowledge.”

Camila Otero for Lightware judges Latin America as “demanding, price-sensitive and highly competitive, but increasingly strategic,” adding, “Mexico leads in scale; Brazil offers major potential despite import complexity; Colombia, Chile, Peru and Costa Rica continue to create strong opportunities.”

Speaking for Renkus-Heinz, western regional sales manager, Garrison Parkin reckons the region is in a “rebuilding phase” with a significant number of AV projects underway. “The market is more competitive than ever, with more integrators and manufacturers chasing these opportunities.”

Keeping pace with North America
North America leads the world in almost all areas of technology and how it is deployed across applications. “What we’re seeing now is Latin American countries working to keep pace with these developments,” adds Parkin. “In some of the smaller markets, we’re seeing strong activity in the corporate sectors. Local and regional government also represents an important area of opportunity.”

“What really resonates with AV project teams in LatAm are IP/IT-specific education and proofs of concept that demonstrate the potential and resilience of networked solutions,” finds Chris Scheck, head of marketing content at Lawo. “We are in talks with customers in Paraguay and Venezuela whose junior engineers are eager to learn as much as they can [to] promote IP networking internally. Like elsewhere in the world, the younger generation is ready for IP.”

Mexico
As the most North America-adjacent market, integrators in Mexico work to US timelines and procurement norms. AVIXA estimates the size of the Mexico market at roughly $3bn, growing at above 5% a year through to 2028.

The country hosted 13 World Cup matches across venues in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey this summer. “The Estadio Azteca came out of an 18-month rebuild that touched almost everything an AV integrator cares about,” Montano says, citing a superior wi-fi footprint, exterior screens and a 340-speaker sound system.

Guadalajara took on an extensive upgrade of its own, though Monterrey needed comparatively little. “All of it was specified for the highest-pressure broadcast month in world sport, and those venues will run league football and concerts on the same systems for years.”

Mexican AV culture is “mature”, according to Lightware which has strengthened relationships with Tecso Pro, Meitec Led and Centro de Conectividad across ProAV and IT channels.

From Leyard’s perspective, AV is undergoing a process of expansion and maturation. “Although each country has different levels of maturity, we are seeing a common trend,” says LatAm CEO, Odair Tremante.

“Customers, integrators, and specifiers are becoming more discerning. Hybrid collaboration, virtual production, retail media, real-time monitoring, and immersive experiences are already driving investment in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina.”

He believes a significant share of future AV investment will be connected to the modernisation of infrastructure and experience-driven spaces across airports, stadia, arenas, museums and corporate environments.

“We expect increasing integration of LED with architecture, data, management systems, and AI,” he says. “This comprehensive approach will enable the development of more functional and intelligent spaces – and even cities – in which technology responds to the real needs of both operations and
people.”

Live experiences culture
Jorge Sobenes, sales director, Ross Video confirms the rapid shift to experience-driven environments. “Live experiences have always been central to Latin American culture. Today, organisations are investing in higher-quality, immersive environments while still demanding simple-to-operate solutions that deliver long-term value within local budgets.

Following the World Cup, “which highlighted the importance of world-class venue technology,” Ross expects continued investment across sports venues, museums, shopping centres, and entertainment destinations.

“Organisations are looking to create more immersive experiences, making integrated AV, production and control technologies key differentiators.”

Bogotá, Santiago, and São Paulo are scaling electric bus fleets and modernising metro and terminal infrastructure. “Each programme carries digital signage, passenger information, and command-and-control requirements,” says Montano.

AWS has committed more than $4bn to a data centre in Chile and Google has opened one in Mexico. “These are IT projects, but each comes with a network operations centre and ProAV control rooms,” says Montano.

No single formula
Outside the larger markets, opportunities abound. “Some of the most significant opportunities in my career have come from countries that competitors chose to overlook,” Montano shares. “That has always struck me as a gift to whoever is willing to show up.”

Guatemala “works as a regional gateway,” he notes, with integrators there often covering several Central American countries from one office. Ecuador is “early stage but structurally ready,” (the Smart City Ecuador initiative to deploy smart technologies across municipalities, is endorsed by the Ecuadorian Municipal Association and the Inter-American Development Bank). Paraguay may be a “modest economy”, but Asunción hosted an edition of the ALOOH LATAM Forum in 2025, and a local industry that “is organised well beyond its size.”

Montano concludes, “In all three, one well-executed reference project can define a brand’s reputation for years, and the right distributor relationship in a neighbouring hub can open several countries at once.”

There is no single formula for Latin America, Karim Galib, Barco’s sales director emphasises; “Successful strategies need to be localised.

“In markets such as Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, AV is becoming increasingly strategic. The conversation is moving beyond hardware and individual meeting rooms toward user experience, interoperability, standardisation, business outcomes and employee satisfaction and retention.

“Central America markets can be surprisingly attractive. Although smaller in scale, they have sophisticated enterprise, financial services and hospitality customers. These markets are highly relationship-driven and channel-led, making strong local partnerships particularly important.”

Jay Wallace, who handles sales for Clear-Com, has seen increased business in practically all regional markets. The company provided an Eclipse matrix for a broadcast client in Paraguay and is working on a large industrial intercom system in Ecuador.

“We’re installing multiple FreeSpeak II wireless systems for a nuclear power plant service in Argentina, a large matrix intercom for a HoW in Brazil, and solutions for a corporate client in Mexico.”

Higher education is a strengthening vertical for Lightware, especially in Colombia. “Our proof-of-concept deployments have helped universities validate interoperability, reduce technical uncertainty and turn ideas into real projects,” explains Otero. “This approach has contributed to several opportunities within Colombian higher education. We are also seeing momentum in Brazilian universities around AV-over-IP and more flexible learning environments.”

Brazil
All user interfaces and codes must be rewritten in Portuguese for devices operating in Brazil, notes Neves, but Portuguese-speaking in a sea of Spanish language markets is the least of the territory’s distinctions.

“Brazil is a world unto itself,” affirms Montano. “The language barrier only exists for companies that refuse to learn the market and hire locally. The channel is large, sophisticated, and self-contained, and operationally it is the most complex.”

AVIXA ranks it the region’s largest, so the prize is proportional to the effort. “The scale of its projects often match mature markets,” reports Sobenes.

Respondents insist Brazil should be treated as a distinct market within Latin America. “The country has continental dimensions, a specific tax structure, its own import processes, and regulations that can vary between states and municipalities,” notes Tremante.

Sao Paulo’s Clean City Law, for example, establishes specific rules for outdoor advertising and directly affects DOOH projects.

“In addition, serving such a vast territory requires access to technical support, spare parts, and qualified partners across different regions.”

The level of tariffs applied to goods entering the country means excessive bureaucracy and high import taxes.

“This can make US-manufactured technology significantly more expensive,” says Parkin. “As a result, our activity there is currently more limited than in some other Latin American markets.”

Tariffs can “push customers toward cloud or locally assembled COTS [commercial off the shelf] solutions, driving manufacturers to shift focus toward software-based, recurring-licencing models,” reports Jason Barden, Riedel Communications’ sales director.

That said, the Brazilian market is also the most diverse, “with projects from corporate buildings to higher education facilities, and a healthy HoW segment,” says Neves.

The first Latin America country to complete an analogue shutoff by 2016, Brazil is now redesigning its terrestrial transmission system for deployment of TV3.0 (DTV+), for 4K transmission, immersive audio, and broadband-integrated interactivity.

“Expect demand for native UHD and HDR content, plus more advertising production as broadcasters personalise delivery,” Barden says. Ahead of the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, hosted across eight Brazilian cities, expect deployments spanning broadcast centres, LED displays, security command centres and 5G infrastructure.

“The Women’s World Cup will almost certainly drive important investments in and around stadiums, public-viewing areas and in broadcast,” confirms Scheck. “Without doubt, Brazil has the highest adoption rate of ST2110 technology. In other Latin America countries, usually for budget reasons, clients prefer to evolve their infrastructure in small steps.”

Don’t view 33 as one
The reality, Scheck warns, is Latin American countries “tend to differ quite significantly, and the political and economic climate in the region is often unpredictable, with sometimes stark currency fluctuations against the dollar and the Euro. Carefully tailoring the solutions to your potential customers is therefore of the utmost importance.”

It’s self-evident that Latin America should never be approached as a single market but as 33. “Success depends on understanding each country’s business culture, procurement process, and regulations,” says Barden.

Aside from Brazil’s taxation regime, Argentina recently eliminated its SEDI import licensing scheme which means advance import declarations are no longer required, but Mexico requires NOM [compliance and safety marking] certification for importers.

“Local partners help manage these differences, but cultural understanding matters more,” Barden says.

“Companies investing in partner enablement and ongoing customer engagement will outperform those relying on occasional visits.”

“Don’t treat [Latin America] as one market,” urges Galib. “Technology matters, but trust, relationships and long-term commitment remain fundamental to doing business successfully across the region.”

The most important advice from Parkin is “be present. It’s important to spend time with customers, integrators and distributors while building direct relationships rather than simply taking orders from a distance.”

“This requires a long-term commitment,” says Tremante, “understanding the particularities of each country, developing partners, training teams, and maintaining technical support and component availability after delivery. It means taking responsibility for the outcome, supporting the customer’s evolution, and remaining accessible throughout the project’s entire lifecycle.”

Patience is the key for Wallace. “Expect long sales cycles. Be prepared to spend time on the ground to listen to the client and learn their workflow. This is an exciting and interesting part of the world. Anticipate complications and embrace the challenge.”

Montano advises, “Learn the market before you try to sell into it. In a relationship-driven market, reputation is the whole business, and nothing damages it faster than being visibly behind.”

Finally, don’t be afraid to push high-end solutions. Neves advises, “Even a small portion of a large population can prove to be a valuable revenue generator.”

 

Regions: AV UK’s cautious optimism

AV Magazine

article here

While the UK has baked under multiple heatwaves, the AV business environment of ‘cautious optimism’ is defining the temperature in a country where building and venue upgrades and refurbishments are driving investment. 

Bryan Davies, regional sales manager for Ross Video, effectively sums up the consensus: “The UK ProAV climate feels cautiously positive.”

“People are spending, but they’re being more considered with it,” agrees Craig Storey, CEO at Lightware Visual Engineering. “Projects still need to show a clear return, whether that’s improving collaboration, making offices work harder, or helping education spaces stay relevant and attractive.”

Pufferfish CEO Stephen Patterson dubs the market cautious but creative. “UK budgets are being scrutinised more closely, but there is still a strong appetite for AV that genuinely earns its place.”

Opportunities for growth
Both Anthony Hammond, consultant at Jigsaw24, and Arthur Brockhoff, regional sales, PlexusAV, say the current climate feels challenging.

“Where I see growth is in the crossover between professional video production and ProAV as well as in building solutions that prioritise low ecological impact,” Hammond says.
Brockhoff highlights “strong opportunities, particularly around projects where organisations are growing, consolidating, or investing in new environments.”

Ferdinand Van de Blaak, sales at Matrox Video, welcomes the UK’s “resilience” with organisations “increasingly focused on future-proofing their AV infrastructure,” as does Riedel’s local sales manager, Jamie Buckley. He says, “While the past couple of years have been impacted by inflation and supply chain pressures, we’re now seeing greater stability and renewed confidence in long-term investment.”

Nonetheless the cost of services is rising constantly. “This has a significant impact on smaller opportunities and support service costs,” reports Hammond. “There are pockets of prosperity in the corporate market, particularly in tech, fintech and startups, where I see the most opportunity. This is largely in the overhaul of meeting rooms and event spaces.”

Davies finds cost awareness part of every AV conversation, but the tone is constructive. “Customers are planning carefully, seeking long-term value and choosing systems that are scalable, efficient and easier to operate,” he says. “In many cases, that is strengthening the business case for ProAV.”

A major factor is the increased global demand for chipsets which is putting pressure on supply chains. “For AV this means vendors need to take a more strategic approach to forecasting and stock planning, ensuring they can support product roadmaps and customer requirements as technology continues to evolve,” Brockhoff says.

Value above cost
Guy Phelps of LED manufacturer Leyard Europe notes UK customers increasingly asking about European-made solutions to support shorter lead times, sustainability objectives and reduced project risk.

“The UK market remains highly focused on value rather than simply lowest cost,” he adds. “While economic pressures are increasing competition, customers continue to consider the long-term impact and return on investment of their technology decisions.”

There are more positive outlooks. Storey says inflation has eased recently, and supply chains are better than they were, “but labour, shipping, energy and specialist components still put pressure on margins and timelines”.

Patterson finds pricing “relatively stable”, although component supply remains something to watch. “Freight costs continue to fluctuate, but we are not currently seeing significant pressure there. With the broader cost of doing business continuing to rise, we would expect wage pressures to become a bigger consideration over the next 12 to 24 months.”

Strength in depth
Respondents are far more positive about the UK’s strength in depth of its creative and content ecosystem. “We have world-class capability across broadcast, live events, theatre, museums and heritage, and that influences how clients approach AV,” says Patterson. “The starting point is often the story and the audience experience, with technology following to bring that vision to life. Rather than beginning with a specification, clients are typically asking how they can create impact and engagement.”

Storey agrees; “What stands out in the UK is how mature and relationship-led the market is. Buyers tend to be knowledgeable, expectations are high, and there’s a strong focus on reliability, service and long-term support rather than just buying technology for the sake of it.”

Davies thinks the UK has achieved balance. He says the country “combines a great understanding of broadcast with live-event pragmatism” and that there is a general focus “on resilient, multi-use spaces, lean crews and fast content turnaround.”

Taking an early lead
As one of the most densely populated AV markets in the world, the UK’s domestic culture of early adoption sets it apart from other European regions, says Richard McLean, commercial manager, d&b UK. “It’s a highly professionalised, fast moving environment where new technologies are tested, integrated and scaled quickly.”

Utelogy’s EMEA MD Jonathan Mangnall reckons the UK has “a distinct AV personality… combining a mature, engineering-led integrator culture with one of Europe’s fastest shifts toward IT-centric, software-defined AV. “Organisations are early adopters of open standards, data-driven operations, and managed services, with little appetite for proprietary lock-in,” he adds.

Stephen Rhead at Sonos points out that the UK has a strong custom integration channel, “whereas in parts of Northern Europe installation in these environments is more often handled by electricians.”This can influence both system design and the extent to which professional solutions are specified, he says.

Hospitality is the standout vertical for Sonos and operators report sustained demand for refurbishments. “Although compared with France or Germany, the UK has less emphasis on outdoor hospitality spaces, which reduces the demand for external audio solutions,” he says. “Retail activity remains more limited, with some projects paused or reduced in scope due to tough trading conditions, whereas hospitality continues to generate consistent AV opportunities.”

Reimagining the workplace
It’s apparent that significant activity stems from the workplace as organisations balance hybrid models with renewed focus on office engagement. “This is driving investment in collaboration spaces, digital signage and technologies that improve the workplace experience,” notes Phelps.

Emphasising “flexibility” Danielle Myburgh, sales director, Pixel Global AV says, “The office is no longer competing with home working by simply offering desks. It needs to offer collaboration, creativity, mentoring and connection. That is driving investment in better meeting spaces, improved hybrid experiences and more adaptable environments.

“The UK market has always had a strong focus on user experience and integration. There is a real appreciation that AV is not just about installing equipment; it’s about creating spaces that work for the people using them.”

The ‘light commercial’ market presents a “mixed picture” for Sonos, as rising costs and reduced spend put retail shops, small offices, cafes and restaurants under pressure. “We’ve actually been seeing increased investment from operators who are refurbishing and upgrading venues,” Rhead says.

Refurb and return to work
The strongest activity at Lightware is around workplace change and education. “A lot of businesses are using office moves, refurbs and return-to-work plans as a chance to rethink how teams actually use the workplace,” Storey reports.

In the mid-term he thinks investment will be driven by “corporate real estate changes, hybrid working, campus upgrades, sustainability targets” and the need to make physical spaces more valuable.Certain areas of legislation and regulatory mandates such as the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and Martyn’s Law (Terrorism Protection of Premises Act) are driving substantial budgets across many sectors which partially pertain to AV solutions.

“I believe the continued growth and demand for EN54 certified systems for life safety, CRA and Martyn’s Law will together forge monumental spending in AV across many sectors ensuring security and safety for public buildings and spaces for many years to come,” assures James Kennedy, operations manager, Peavey Commercial Audio. The MoD budget “will certainly” see increased injection of funds within the next two years resulting in “plenty of facilities and projects that involve elements of AV.”

The proposed 100,000-seat Manchester United ‘New Trafford’ stadium which is estimated at an eye watering £2bn will encompass all of these disciplines at great scale.

Ross’ Davies also spies strong activity in corporate spaces, sports and education. A recent London financial-services project turned an
under-used auditorium into a revenue-generating events space. Ongoing investment at Principality Stadium in Cardiff reflects the sports trend towards synchronised graphics, LED and data-rich matchday presentation. Confetti X in Nottingham shows universities investing in world-class esports production.

Multi-operational venues
Beyond these Ross projects, the major UK drivers are creative-economy policy and destination venues. The Creative Industries Sector Plan, London Olympia’s £1.3bn redevelopment and Bristol’s 20,000-capacity Aviva Arena all point to demand for production, display, control, networking and content systems, Davies says.

The appetite for upgrading arena and sports stadia is picked up elsewhere. Kennedy thinks the “high concentration of elite-level sports stadia sets the UK apart from anywhere else in Europe. “There is a real competition and demand for sports clubs to outdo each other on stadium spec and size and the budgets are getting bigger!”

The Tottenham Hotspur stadium is among those to have set the benchmark for large entertainment spaces. “There’s a real surge in embracing AV technology in the sports and entertainment sectors in the UK mostly driven by private funding,” Kennedy says.

Use multiple spaces
Sound is a crucial component of any venue, especially in house systems capable of supporting diverse programming.

“The shift toward multi-purpose operation is a necessity as running costs rise and revenue models broaden,” says McLean who identifies fixed installation as the strongest growth area for d&b. It recently equipped Venue Cymru’s (Llandudno) multiple spaces with a range of kit.

We’re also seeing notable activity in the small to mid scale venue segment. These spaces are increasingly opting for premium audio to attract higher calibre creatives and encourage repeat audiences.”

Netgear’s sale director Jordan Hobday is most upbeat. He sees the UK leading in the convergence of AV, IT, and broadcast systems onto shared IP infrastructure. “What was once a discussion is now being written into project specifications, driving a new wave of networked AV deployments. Demand is holding up well, and the pipeline going forward looks solid, particularly in live events and education, where projects that stretched post-pandemic are now completing or moving into the next phase.”

He goes further, “London and Manchester together represent a density of production facilities, touring companies, and iconic venues that have no real equivalent elsewhere in Europe.”

Couple that with continued inbound studio and streaming platform investments and major venue and facility modernisation programs and it all points to sustained infrastructure spend. Increasingly, that infrastructure is converged.

Devolution in AV
As the country welcomes a new PM promising to prioritise regions and cities outside the capital it’s worth mentioning that AV UK does not mean London.

“Absolutely not!” exclaims Kennedy. “There are many examples of marquee AV projects across the UK that significantly contribute to the overall nationwide spend.”

The planned Universal United Kingdom Resort in Bedfordshire is a prime example of major private capex spend outside of Greater London.