As artificial intelligence continues reshaping industries well beyond technology, custom integration firms are increasingly finding practical applications for AI tools inside their own businesses, from customer service and project management to internal workflows and marketing automation.
During the HTSA Spring Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., executives from SoundVision and Audio Command Systems detailed how their organizations are actively building AI-driven tools aimed at improving efficiency, reducing friction and enhancing customer experiences.
For many integrators, the focus is not on replacing technicians or automating installations, but rather on streamlining the operational side of increasingly complex businesses.
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SoundVision Builds AI Into Service, Marketing & Project Management
At North Carolina-based SoundVision, CEO Mark DiPietro described a growing portfolio of internally developed AI tools designed to support service operations, automate administrative tasks and improve customer communication.
One of those tools functions as an AI-powered support assistant capable of helping customers troubleshoot systems while also directing users toward the company’s service membership offerings.
“It’s actually a sales tool too,” DiPietro said while demonstrating how the system recommends proactive service plans during support interactions.
The company has also deployed AI agents internally to automate project management workflows and monitor customer service responsiveness. According to DiPietro, those systems can summarize project management spreadsheets before meetings, notify employees about overdue tasks and escalate service requests that have not received timely responses.
“If they don’t do that, it literally tags it and then sends it to the service manager,” DiPietro says of the company’s customer response tracking system.
SoundVision is additionally leveraging AI to mine historical customer data for targeted marketing opportunities. One example involved identifying legacy lighting-control customers who may now be candidates for upgraded lighting fixtures.
“Being able to remarket to your existing client database is huge,” says Michelle Ferlauto, SoundVision’s COO.
DiPietro credited Ari Supran, CEO of speaker company Sonance, an AI power user and industry thought leader, with helping to accelerate his understanding of practical AI implementation in the integration space.
Audio Command Systems Focuses on Workflow Integration
Executives at Audio Command Systems described similar efforts centered around operational visibility and workflow consolidation.
According to Tom Clancy, the company’s executive vice president, the AI initiative at Audio Command Systems began as an effort to solve a longstanding operational challenge that will resonate with other integrators: too much critical information spread across too many disconnected software platforms. Like many others, ACS relied on separate systems for accounting, proposals, purchasing, CRM and field operations, making it difficult for employees to quickly access project history or operational data.
To address that issue, Clancy began building what he calls a “command center,” a centralized AI-powered dashboard designed to act as a “single pane of glass” for the company’s operations.
Rather than hiring outside developers, Clancy said he used AI-assisted coding tools to rapidly prototype and expand the platform himself. According to Clancy, the first iteration of the system came together “within basically three weeks” while he worked on it during off-hours. He described gathering direct feedback from team members across departments to identify the biggest workflow bottlenecks and operational frustrations employees encountered in their day-to-day work.
From there, Clancy said he used AI-driven development workflows and “vibe coding” techniques to build solutions around those problems, allowing the system to evolve quickly without the long timelines traditionally associated with custom software development. Now, the platform continues expanding as new operational needs emerge and additional employee feedback is incorporated into the system.
AI Becoming a Major Topic Across the Industry
The increasing interest in AI was a recurring theme throughout the HTSA conference itself, with multiple sessions centered around this very topic. This follows the trend of other industry conferences that are increasingly focusing on how dealers can leverage AI to streamline operations and become more efficient.
Like Clancy and DiPietro, there are now many AI power users across the industry, many of whom credit Sonance’s Supran with encouraging them to explore different AI tools.
HTSA’s Tom Doherty says many members are now moving beyond experimentation into practical business applications and workflow automation.
“What’s happening at this conference is there are a lot more number of members that are doing and building some real use case, real day-to-day business workflows,” Doherty says.
