Visual AI for More Productive Meetings

The age of AI has IT teams racing to find and integrate AI solutions into their organizations. This technological gold rush brings promising implications in areas such as security, cost reduction, productivity, equity, and much more. And with new hybrid work models revealing new workplace challenges, it's possible that advancements in AI technology couldn't have come at a better time.

The new reality of hybrid schedules revealed several problems — many of which were technological. Remote workers were often presented with substandard video from their in-office collaborators, poorly framed and difficult to see and hear.

All of this affected the remote worker's engagement. As an image's clarity diminishes, gestures, expressions, and all the other nonverbal clues critical to maintaining engagement become compromised. When remote meeting attendees can’t see their colleagues properly, meeting fatigue can set in, and that can have a negative impact on productivity.

So, can AI help bridge the gap between remote workers and in-room participants?

Visual AI

Intelligent video systems offer an elegant solution, dramatically improving the experience for the remote viewer — while at the same time allowing in-person collaborators to conduct a meeting or contribute without worrying about “leaving the shot.” Intelligent video systems create a broadcast-quality video product automatically, with no need for manual video switching or camera operation. Intelligent video — often driven by what’s called “visual AI” — can capture all the gestures, expressions, and nonverbal cues from every meeting participant, anywhere in the room.

To understand the real power of these systems, it’s helpful to understand just what they can achieve. Visual AI systems provide a number of experiences, including group framing, presenter tracking, speaker tracking, and more.

Group Framing

Karin M. Reed, CEO of Speaker Dynamics and co-author of the book “Suddenly Hybrid,” shared an experience on the Crestron blog that was probably familiar to many, many people:

​I was leading a meeting from within a conference room, but the only technology available was an extra laptop, which was situated on the table. There was no monitor to allow the in-room attendees to see the online attendees and vice versa. There was no way for them to interact at all.

“While in-room attendees can usually see their remote counterparts’ faces well, sometimes it’s hard for virtual attendees to see the faces of the in-room attendees, especially if the room is large,” she notes.

A big step toward solving the issue highlighted in boldface type is an AI-driven intelligent video function called “group framing.”

Group framing overcomes many of these issues by automatically keeping everyone in the frame of a shot being transmitted to those viewing remotely. A system with this aspect of an overall intelligent video solution will adjust as people enter, exit, or move around the room to ensure that everyone stays in that shot.

Group framing functionality is ideal for medium to large conference rooms where everyone faces the camera, and the number and placement of people in the space may vary. It’s perfect for collaborative meetings with many contributors, such as brainstorming sessions or meetings that include updates from multiple stakeholders or departments.

Presenter Tracking

Crestron’s Rony Sebok, director of product management — intelligent video, created the first presenter tracking solutions to record lectures at colleges and universities in the Boston area. The goal was to keep a lecturer in the frame of a video recording — no matter where the presenter moved about the stage.

The technology has advanced considerably from those early days: Now, presenter tracking is incredibly effective at keeping moving presenters in the frame. Presenter tracking detects when people enter a presentation area, frames them, and continues to track them in real time. It’s Ideal for rooms with presentation areas — lecture halls, training venues, large conference rooms, and so on — where a presenter needs to be in motion.

The benefits aren’t limited to those viewing remotely: In addition to providing virtual (or asynchronous) viewers a constant image of the presenter — complete with gestures and expressions — the speaker delivering the content doesn’t have to worry about stepping out of frame. This, of course, allows the speaker to focus completely on the presentation they’re delivering.

Speaker Tracking

Speaker tracking is precisely what the name implies: This experience switches the view as the conversation moves from person to person in the space. Multi-camera speaker tracking solutions are superior to single-camera options here, as primary and secondary cameras allow for clean cuts between speakers. The first camera remains live on the first active speaker, the second camera moves to the position for the next speaker, and then the system switches to the second camera.

The panning, tilting, and zooming of the camera are absent from the video, providing a higher-quality viewing experience for the remote participant.

Multiple cameras also allow for more than one view of the room to be shown simultaneously. This could be a presenter and the person asking a question, a wide view of the room alongside the active speaker, or any other perspective that enhances the remote participant’s ability to fully collaborate with the in-room participants.

As a conversation moves around a room, the system will follow the natural flow of the meeting. Collaborations such as brainstorming sessions or Q&A meetings can really benefit from the experience. It’s ideal for those large, extra-large, and high-value spaces that require an immersive video experience to keep everyone engaged and in view during sessions in which many participants are adding to the flow of the conversation.

With systems such as those offered by Crestron, there’s another benefit: They’re so incredibly intuitive, so easy to set up, and so easy to run with just a single touch of a button, your team will never have to concern themselves with the technology that’s running these experiences. They can focus all their attention on presentation, collaboration, conversation — and results.

Sam Kennedy
Sr. Director, Product Marketing

Sam Kennedy is Crestron's Senior Director of Product Marketing, leading the company's Commercial Product Marketing, Technical Marketing, Campaign Strategy, and Experience Center teams. Collectively under Sam's direction, these teams are responsible for bringing the Crestron story to customers and partners around the world. Sam has over 25 years of experience in Unified Communications across various Sales, Marketing, and Product Development roles. He often shares his perspectives in presentations and thought leadership sessions across the industry.

Prior to his current role, Sam most notably served as the Chief Product Evangelist for Poly and Polycom, as well as other roles in Product Management and Sales Engineering.  His resume also includes roles at Wire One, VCON, and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Sam has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Central Connecticut State University.