InfoComm 2026: Iowa State’s Mike Pedersen on Why Higher Ed AV Must Embrace AI Fast

Iowa State University's AV director Mike Pedersen used his appearance at InfoComm 2026 in Las Vegas to deliver a clear message to the higher education technology community: institutions that delay AI adoption in their AV environments are already falling behind.

The Details

Pedersen, who oversees audiovisual and unified communications infrastructure at Iowa State, argues that higher education has historically been slow to adopt emerging technology, and AI is no exception. He believes that lag is no longer acceptable given how quickly the technology is maturing.

Key points from his InfoComm conversations:

• Campus AV environments are increasingly complex, with lecture capture, hybrid learning, and remote collaboration demands all colliding at once
• AI tools are already capable of handling automated room management, transcription, and intelligent content routing, functions that currently require significant manual oversight
• Higher ed institutions face a compounding problem: aging infrastructure combined with shrinking IT staffing budgets, making automation not just useful but necessary
• Pedersen emphasized that vendor partners and integrators need to lead these conversations with clients rather than waiting for institutions to ask

"It's a little bit like a family reunion," Pedersen said of InfoComm, noting the value of peer-to-peer knowledge sharing in accelerating adoption decisions.

His broader argument is that AI should not be viewed as a future investment for universities. It is a present-day operational requirement.

Why This Matters for Service Providers

Higher education is a significant vertical for MSPs and technology resellers, and Pedersen's perspective reflects a shift that creates both urgency and opportunity. Institutions that feel pressure to modernize but lack internal expertise are exactly the clients who need a trusted technology partner to guide the transition.

The dynamic he describes, stretched IT teams managing increasingly complex communication environments, maps directly to the value proposition of AI-assisted call handling and voice automation. MSPs serving education clients should be positioning AI voice tools as a staffing multiplier, not just a feature upgrade. If you are waiting for your education clients to raise the subject, you are likely waiting too long.

The framing Pedersen uses, that AI adoption is now an operational necessity rather than a strategic option, is a useful one to borrow when pitching AI voice agents to your own clients.

Looking Ahead

Watch for AI-driven AV and communications tools to become a standard expectation in higher ed RFPs over the next 12 to 18 months. MSPs with a clear AI services story will have a meaningful advantage in this vertical.

For the full story, read the original article on UC Today.