UC Today

InfoComm 2026 in Las Vegas was the stage for the global debut of the OpenMeet 2 UC.

Ray Cheng, Product Manager at Shokz, says the device represents the company's second generation of bone conduction technology for the office.

The OpenMeet 2 UC is built around bone conduction technology, an approach that sits firmly outside the mainstream of enterprise headset design.

Where traditional headsets deliver audio through the eardrums, bone conduction transmits sound via vibrations through the cheekbones, directly to the inner ear. The result: users can hear their calls clearly while keeping their ears open to the world around them.

For Cheng, that distinction is everything.

"Most customers want ANC – that's fine. But some of them want to keep their ears open, and for office headset users, they've had no choice until now."

The ideal customer, Cheng explains, is someone clocking four to six hours of calls and meetings daily who finds traditional headsets physically uncomfortable over long periods.

Rather than competing head-to-head with the likes of Jabra or Poly on noise cancellation, Shokz is carving out a different lane entirely – comfort and awareness for heavy headset users.

"We don't want to build a similar headset," Cheng said. "We want to provide something new."

InfoComm, the world's largest AV integrator show, was a deliberate choice for the launch.

Shokz sees the event as the right platform to signal its ambitions in the enterprise space, where the OpenMeet and OpenCom series form the foundation of its office portfolio – with more products potentially on the way.

For businesses rethinking how their teams communicate – especially those with employees splitting time between busy offices and home environments – Shokz is making a compelling case that open ears might just be the smarter option.

Managing AV and collaboration technology across hospitals, clinics, classrooms, and event spaces is no small task, and for Justin Scord, Senior Manager, Collaboration & Media Services at Stanford Medicine, the challenge isn't just keeping the lights on. It's knowing where to start.

"There's always so much change, so much technology, so many different manufacturers," Scord told UC Today at InfoComm 2026 in Las Vegas. "Keeping that North Star and making sure we're building systems that are scalable and supportable is really our focus."

Scord oversees a broad footprint at the Palo Alto-based academic medical system – from patient rooms and conference spaces to live event broadcasts. If there's a screen, a microphone, or a speaker involved, his team has a hand in it.

That sprawling remit gives him a sharp perspective on where the industry is heading.

On AI, he's optimistic – but rigorous. "I'm all about the data," he said.

Stanford's in-house data science team actively researches which AI models perform best for specific workflows, and Scord believes the wider AV industry should be asking the same hard questions.

"Ask the manufacturers where they got the research and data to choose the models they're using. That alone is going to weed out a lot of manufacturers."

His concern is that too many AI deployments are driven by commercial partnerships rather than genuine fit. "If they're not choosing the right models based on workflow and using data to show it's actually going to provide ROI, it's probably not something you want to pursue."

At InfoComm, Scord spoke about agentic AI and its potential to augment – not replace – project teams. His message was clear: AI should aggregate data, surface actionable insights, and make day-to-day work more manageable, without diminishing the people doing it.

"Get educated around machine learning and AI at a high level," he said. "Understand the limitations, and start slowly incorporating it into your workplace."

Is your meeting room ready for the agentic AI era?

At InfoComm 2026, UC Today speaks with Sohail Tariq, Senior Director of Product Management at Microsoft, and Nathan Glotfelty, Senior Director of Alliances at Q-SYS, following their Innovation Stage session on the future of intelligent workspaces.

The conversation explores how Microsoft Teams Rooms, Copilot, Facilitator room skills, and Q-SYS hardware and software are coming together to give AI richer context from both the digital and physical meeting environment.

Sohail and Nathan also discuss Microsoft’s Redmond Experience Center deployment, where Q-SYS has helped consolidate room systems onto a single software-defined AV platform. They explain why visibility, reliability, and accurate room data are becoming critical as enterprise IT teams prepare spaces for more intelligent, automated, and scalable collaboration experiences.

The interview also covers the latest phase of the Microsoft and Q-SYS partnership, including the launch of a Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows bar and a Q-SYS Scheduling Panel built on Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP).

In this episode, Kristian McCann, Presenter at UC Today, sits down with Morgan Adamski, Principal at PwC, to unpack how organizations are actually operationalizing AI inside the Security Operations Centre (SOC). 

With alert fatigue rising, analyst capacity stretched, and attackers accelerating their use of AI, this conversation gets straight to what matters: how AI is changing day-to-day security operations—and where many teams are still falling short. Adamski explains why simply “adding AI” isn’t enough, and why leading organizations are redesigning their entire security operations model with AI at the core.

* Why AI is transforming SOC triage, reducing manual analysis and accelerating threat detection
* The shift from bolt-on AI to fully integrated, AI-first SecOps strategies
* Where to draw the line between AI agents and human decision-making in high-risk scenarios
* The critical role of vulnerability management, third-party risk, and breach readiness in an AI-driven threat landscape

Next Steps

* For more news on how to keep your company secure, visit https://www.uctoday.com/

Are you treating your meeting room AV as an afterthought and risking your entire Microsoft Teams rollout?

In this InfoComm 2026 interview, Marcus Law sits down with Josh Arnold, Director of Collaboration Product Strategy at Q-SYS, to uncover why IT and facilities leaders must rethink their collaboration spaces. With the launch of the RoomSuite Collaboration Bar and new scheduling panels, Q-SYS is transforming how organizations deploy Microsoft Teams Rooms. Learn how to turn basic audio and video signals into actionable workplace data, ensuring your spaces are ready for AI tools like Microsoft Copilot. Discover the three pillars of a future-proof AV strategy that lowers operational risk, reduces customer effort, and delivers immediate time-to-value across global deployments.

In this episode of UC Today, Christopher Carey sits down with Irwin Lazar, President & Principal Analyst at Metrigy, to unpack the key takeaways from InfoComm 2026 in Las Vegas. 

From AI-powered room management and deep fake detection to MCP-enabled data federation, Irwin breaks down how AI is reshaping the AV and workplace collaboration space – and what to watch for next. 

Topics covered include: AI use cases in AV and video conferencing, NetSpeek's Lena agent for multi-vendor management, Neat Pulse's MCP integration, deep fake detection from Zoom/BrightHire, privacy and security concerns, and what Irwin wants to see at Infocomm 2027.

Are meeting rooms still built for the way people actually work?

In this UC Today interview, Marcus Law speaks with Javed Khan, CEO of Neat, about how artificial intelligence, edge computing, and distributed hardware are reshaping the enterprise meeting room.

Khan explains why Neat’s architecture treats every camera and microphone as an intelligent device, rather than relying on a central box to manage the room experience. He also explores how AI at the edge can reduce latency, improve privacy, and support smarter real-time features such as intelligent layouts, transcription, translation, and contextual meeting experiences.

The conversation also covers Neat’s role across Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet environments, the rise of bring your own device meeting rooms, and why underused collaboration spaces may need to become more than places for video calls.

Khan shares how Neat plans to evolve from a disruptive challenger into a broader enterprise force by expanding its product portfolio, strengthening customer success, and developing applications that connect meeting room activity to wider enterprise workflows.

Watch the full interview to learn how Neat sees the future of intelligent rooms, workplace technology, and enterprise collaboration.

What makes a country truly AI-ready in 2026? In this episode of UC Today, host Christopher Carey sits down with John Durcan, Chief Technologist at IDA Ireland — Ireland's Foreign Direct Investment Agency — to explore how enterprises are approaching AI adoption, what's driving global tech investment decisions, and why regulation might actually be Europe's secret weapon.

John shares insights from his conversations with multinational companies on the ground in Ireland, covering:

What separates AI-ready countries from the rest
How the EU AI Act is shaping enterprise strategy
The rise of agentic AI across financial services, MedTech, and life sciences
Why digital sovereignty is now a boardroom conversation
The real impact of AI on jobs — and what companies are doing about it
Whether you're a technology leader, investor, or enterprise decision-maker, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.

What happens to compliance when enterprise voice moves to the cloud?

In this UC Today interview, Marcus Law speaks with Matthew Carey, Director of Product Management at Theta Lake, about why cloud voice migration is not just an IT modernization project. As organizations move away from legacy on-premises phone systems, Carey explains how the compliance model changes, where governance gaps can appear, and why regulated businesses need to think beyond basic call recording.

The conversation explores how communications now span voice, chat, video, screen sharing, SMS, whiteboards, email, and AI-generated summaries. Carey argues that compliance teams need to reconstruct the full conversation lifecycle, not simply capture individual calls. He also discusses the risks of fragmented platforms, the limits of legacy recording tools, and the importance of involving compliance teams before users go live.

Carey also looks at the role of artificial intelligence in unified communications, including why organizations must start governing not only what employees say, but what AI says on their behalf.

Watch the full discussion to learn how IT and compliance leaders can prepare for cloud voice migration, reduce risk, and build a governance foundation that can keep pace with modern UC platforms.

For more Unified Communications & Collaboration Tech News visit https://www.uctoday.com/

Are your meeting rooms really being used, or do they just look busy in the booking system?

In this UC Today interview, Marcus Law speaks with Bill Dellara, Chief Product Officer at VOSS, about why meeting room analytics has become a critical issue for IT, workplace, and real estate leaders navigating hybrid work.

Bill explains why booking data often shows intent rather than reality, and how unused or poorly utilized rooms can quietly undermine return on investment, employee experience, and workplace planning. The discussion explores the problem of “phantom space,” the rise of heavily favored “hero rooms,” and the importance of combining booking data with telemetry, occupancy signals, environmental data, and equipment usage insights.

The conversation also looks at how smarter analytics can improve room recommendations, support better hybrid working decisions, and help organizations understand whether their meeting spaces are genuinely fit for purpose.