# End users made up 37% of InfoComm 2026's 28,132 attendees By MarketScale Newsroom · Published 2026-09-18 · Professional AV on MarketScale Canonical: https://www.marketscale.com/industries/pro-av/end-users-made-up-37-of-infocomm-2026s-28132-attendees > AVIXA's InfoComm 2026 count puts end users at 37% of 28,132 attendees, while Microsoft and Cisco used the keynotes to pitch AI agents for the meeting room. ## Key points - A 37% end-user share at a pro AV trade show is a usable benchmark: more than one in three badges belonged to organizations that deploy the equipment, which changes who exhibitors build their demos for. - The sharper question to put to a collaboration vendor after this show is which platform an AI meeting feature actually runs on. According to AVIXA, Cisco's keynote framed intelligent systems and open collaboration ecosystems as working across any platform including Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Zoom, while Microsoft tied its voice agents to Teams Phone and Teams Rooms. - The 170-meter Cat5e reach BZBGEAR's Matt Richards cited to CE Pro for the XTREME-PRO, part of the XLink-ONE family that took Best of Show at InfoComm 2026 from AV Technology, is a manufacturer spec, not an independent test; for facilities with runs past 100 meters it is worth a bench check before fiber is designed out. Thirty-seven percent of the 28,132 verified attendees at InfoComm 2026 were end users, according to AVIXA, the association that produces the show. The June 13-19 event at the Las Vegas Convention Center drew people from 94 countries, international visitors made up 20% of the crowd, and total registrations reached 35,707. The end-user share is the figure worth keeping. AVIXA says end user attendance continues to grow, and at 37% more than one in three badges on the floor belonged to the organizations that install and run this equipment rather than the ones that sell it. For the workplace technology director choosing a meeting-room platform this budget cycle, that suggests exhibitors now build their demonstrations expecting to meet the customer directly, with the integrator in the room rather than in between. Three months on, the show's output is arriving in the fall selling season. Products that won awards in Las Vegas are being shown to other channels, and InfoComm India 2026 was two days away as of September 17, according to Systems Integration Asia. This is the moment the June numbers become useful to someone with a purchase order to write. ## 807 exhibitors across 395,500 square feet AVIXA counts 807 exhibitors and 395,500 net square feet of show floor. The categories it lists run from collaboration and digital signage through broadcast, retail, AI-driven systems and immersive experiences, which is a wide enough spread that a hospital CIO and a stadium operations chief could each have spent the week without crossing paths. AVIXA calls artificial intelligence the defining theme of the event, spanning keynotes, education sessions and exhibitor demonstrations, with applications in collaboration, content creation, customer engagement and operations. That is the association's characterization of what was on display. The release offers no deployment counts or purchase data behind it, so the safer reading is that AI was what vendors chose to lead with, which is a real signal about product roadmaps even if it says nothing yet about installed base. Jenn Heinold, AVIXA's senior vice president of expositions for the Americas, described the 2026 show as the most interactive the organization has produced, pointing to keynotes with live demonstrations and hands-on activations rather than static displays. ## Microsoft and Cisco used the keynotes to sell AI agents for the meeting room Wednesday's opening keynote went to Ilya Bukshteyn, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Teams Calling, Meetings and Devices. According to AVIXA, he laid out new voice agents for Teams Phone, expanded Teams Rooms capabilities, AI-driven meeting experiences and additional collaboration tools, framed around taking routine tasks off employees and improving hybrid meetings. Thursday belonged to Cisco. Espen Løberg, vice president and general manager for collaboration devices, presented what the company calls Connected Intelligence, highlighting an AI-powered Director Agent and a concept it labels Distance Zero. According to AVIXA, Løberg demonstrated how intelligent systems and open collaboration ecosystems are transforming hybrid work across any platform including Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Zoom. Read together, the two keynotes pose a specific question for an IT leader with a mixed estate. Microsoft's agents were described as features of Teams Phone and Teams Rooms; Cisco's were described as platform-agnostic on the device side. For an organization that runs Teams internally but joins customer calls on Zoom and Meet every day, the practical test of any AI room feature is whether it survives a platform switch mid-afternoon. That is a question worth asking a vendor before the demo, not after the deployment. > More than one in three badges on the floor belonged to the organizations that install and run this equipment rather than the ones that sell it. ## Four built environments instead of booths AVIXA ran four show-floor activations designed as working spaces rather than exhibits. Smart Workplace, powered by FORTÉ, combined AI-enabled collaboration, workplace analytics and enterprise communications in one connected office build. The Pitch, powered by Diversified, put sports, broadcast, live-event production and premium hospitality in a single environment, including production workflows and interactive fan engagement. Retail Experience was assembled with Bluesound Professional, BrightSign, Poppulo and Samsung, and covered AI, digital signage, content strategy and connected in-store systems. AVIXA TV turned part of the floor into a functioning broadcast studio, running live production and industry conversations throughout the week. The vendor mix in the retail build is the most useful detail for an operator. AVIXA lists Bluesound Professional, BrightSign, Poppulo and Samsung as the collaborators on the Retail Experience activation, which it describes as exploring how AI, digital signage, content strategy and connected systems are changing customer engagement and in-store experiences. Four suppliers sharing one activation indicates how they expect a store technology stack to be specified: as one connected system rather than a set of separate purchases. For a retail operations lead planning a signage refresh, that pairing is a reference architecture to compare against the current bid list, whether or not the same four brands end up on it. The show also introduced its first Media Day, a dedicated slot for breaking industry announcements, and the AVIXA Women's Breakfast drew hundreds of attendees to hear journalist and author Mariana Atencio speak on trust and leadership as AI reshapes the industry. ## Best of Show gear is already selling into the fall One concrete example of InfoComm output reaching buyers comes from BZBGEAR. In an interview published by CE Pro, reported by Nick Boever, the company's national inside sales manager Matt Richards said the XLink-ONE AV distribution family took Best of Show at InfoComm 2026 from AV Technology, and that BZBGEAR is featuring the platform at CEDIA Expo 2026, a residential integration show. The specifics matter more than the award. According to CE Pro, the XTREME line, the AV-over-IP side of XLink-ONE, runs on standard gigabit networking, a managed switch with IGMP snooping and VLAN segmentation, rather than requiring 10-gigabit switching. The XTREME-PRO model is specified at 48Gbps, HDMI 2.1, 4K at 120Hz and 170 meters over Cat5e. Richards told CE Pro he considers that 170-meter figure, roughly 560 feet, the most underrated specification the company publishes, because it covers runs that would otherwise push a project into fiber. Those are manufacturer specifications, not independent test results, and CE Pro's piece does not describe testing against interference or competing cabling. For a facilities team with runs past 100 meters, an arena concourse, a campus quad, a distribution center with a training room at the far end, the claim is worth a bench check before anyone designs fiber out of the drawings. If it holds, it removes a cost line. If it doesn't, better to learn that on a test rig. Richards also made an argument about bandwidth that carries beyond the home market CE Pro was writing for. He said full 4K at 120Hz with 4:4:4 chroma and HDR does not fit inside an 18-gigabit HDMI chain, and that this bottleneck, not resolution, produces the calls about soft text or a picture dropping on a source change. His position, as CE Pro reported it, is that buyers should specify 48 gigabits for the 4K content they already have, with 8K capability arriving as a side effect. He also said BZBGEAR's 8K switching starts with a two-input model priced below a good HDMI cable, though CE Pro gives no figure. His case for AV over IP was framed for houses, but the logic is familiar to anyone who has outgrown a matrix switcher. A matrix is sized once, before the occupants arrive, and lived inside afterward; an AV-over-IP system grows one endpoint at a time. Richards' point to CE Pro was that nobody accurately predicts zone counts on day one. Any workplace team that has added a fourth huddle room to a floor designed for three knows the feeling. ## InfoComm India 2026 two days out with more than 130 launches, Systems Integration Asia reports The next test of whether the Las Vegas themes travel comes now. Systems Integration Asia reported, days before the doors open, that exhibitors at InfoComm India 2026 have lined up more than 130 product launches, with AI systems running live on the floor. AVIXA's own numbers show 20% of the Las Vegas crowd came from outside the United States. Whether the AI-in-the-room pitch that Microsoft and Cisco made in June draws the same 37% end-user share in a market where the buying chain looks different is the thing to watch when the India attendance figures land. ## Sources - [InfoComm 2026: Future of Work, Experience & AI in AV - AVIXA](https://www.avixa.org/resources/press-releases/infocomm-2026-brings-together-the-future-of-work-experience-and-ai) - [BZBGEAR at CEDIA Expo 2026: How Commercial AV ...](https://www.cepro.com/sponsored/bzbgear-at-cedia-expo-2026-how-commercial-av-powers-todays-luxury-experiences/628354/) (CE Pro) - [One Week to InfoComm India 2026: 130+ Launches, AI ...](https://www.systemsintegrationasia.com/one-week-to-infocomm-india-2026-130-launches-ai-running-live-and-an-iphone-17-on-the-line/) (Systems Integration Asia) Tags: InfoComm 2026, AVIXA, pro AV, Microsoft Teams Rooms, Cisco collaboration, AI meeting rooms, AV over IP, digital signage, BZBGEAR, workplace technology, IT operations, facilities management, InfoComm India, trade shows --- Source: MarketScale, https://www.marketscale.com/industries/pro-av/end-users-made-up-37-of-infocomm-2026s-28132-attendees. 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