ISE 2026 in Barcelona: the AI Stack Behind the “Audiovisual” Boom (and Why It Matters All Year)

Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2026 takes place in Barcelona at Fira de Barcelona Gran Via from 3 to 6 February 2026. The event reaches a new scale, occupying over 100,000 m² of exhibition space with more than 1,700 exhibitors and attendance expected to exceed 85,000 professionals. These figures are not merely symbolic. They reflect a deeper transition: ISE is no longer primarily an audiovisual trade fair, but a global convergence point for AI-driven infrastructure, where audiovisual systems, software, data, and security are merging into a single operational stack.

From audiovisual systems to autonomous environments

The traditional definition of “integrated systems” focused on connecting displays, sound, and control hardware. In 2026, integration increasingly means autonomous environments: systems that sense, interpret, decide, and act with minimal human intervention. Artificial intelligence has become the default control layer, while cybersecurity has moved from a technical detail to a board-level procurement requirement.

This shift explains why AI and cybersecurity dominate both the official ISE programme and local media coverage. The industries represented at ISE—healthcare, transport, education, retail, hospitality, government, and large venues—now depend on complex, distributed digital environments. These environments require automation to reduce operational load, situational awareness across thousands of endpoints, and verifiable security and compliance. AI is the only technology that scales across all three dimensions.

AI themes with relevance beyond the event

AI as the operating system of control rooms

Control rooms are the clearest example of convergence. They bring together audiovisual feeds, IT systems, operational technology, and security functions. In 2026, AI in control rooms extends far beyond video analytics. It encompasses multimodal perception, anomaly detection, cross-system correlation, decision support, and automated orchestration of responses.

Modern control-room architectures follow a layered logic: data ingestion from cameras, sensors, and logs; AI-driven interpretation and prioritization; workflow automation and orchestration; and continuous monitoring for audit and compliance. Barcelona’s relevance lies in its density of real deployment environments, from transport and healthcare to large public venues, making the city a natural testbed for operational AI rather than purely demonstrative use cases.

AI expansion and the cybersecurity imperative

The introduction of a dedicated CyberSecurity Summit at ISE 2026 signals a structural change in the market. Integrated systems are now recognized as part of the enterprise attack surface. Any environment that includes cameras, microphones, building controls, or connected displays must be secured, monitored, and auditable.

Procurement expectations in 2026 increasingly include security-by-design requirements, vendor risk management, software bills of materials, continuous monitoring, and network segmentation. “Air-gapped” systems are no longer credible in environments that require remote management, updates, or monitoring. Security is now inseparable from system design and lifecycle planning.

Creative industries and generative AI at scale

The Spark programme highlights how creative industries are becoming operational AI environments rather than experimental showcases. This shift mirrors broader developments in Agentic AI in Barcelona’s evolving tech landscape, where autonomous decision layers move from theory into real-world infrastructure.

Generative AI is now embedded in production systems: real-time content generation, projection mapping, interactive public displays, automated editing, and synthetic voice are integrated into live audiovisual environments that must operate continuously and at scale.

This transition introduces new constraints. Latency, reliability, rights management, content moderation, and on-device inference are becoming critical design factors. Public-facing AI-driven installations must function under legal, ethical, and reputational constraints, transforming creative technology into a managed, continuously operated system rather than a one-off artistic experiment.

Education AI as a strategic deployment domain

The parallel EdTech Congress Barcelona underscores the growing maturity of AI in education. The central questions are no longer experimental, but institutional: data governance, privacy compliance, bias mitigation, teacher workflows, and long-term platform sustainability.

Education procurement cycles are slow but sticky. Once AI platforms are adopted, they tend to define institutional practices for years. For Barcelona and Catalonia, education represents one of the most stable AI markets in 2026, provided solutions are designed with governance, compliance, and integration as core features.

Barcelona’s structural role in integrated AI systems

Local media coverage emphasizes record scale and international reach, but the deeper implication is Barcelona’s positioning as an integration capital rather than merely a demonstration hub, a positioning reinforced by Barcelona’s audiovisual sector at ISE, as outlined by the city’s official communications. The big metropolis combines dense infrastructure, public institutions, international tourism, education networks, and large venues. This creates a continuous pipeline of real-world deployments where AI-driven integrated systems can be tested, refined, and scaled.

The expansion of ISE across all available space at Fira de Barcelona reflects sustained global demand for integrated infrastructure. This demand translates into recurring budget lines rather than isolated capital expenditures.

A practical AI stack for integrated systems

Data and sensing

Integrated environments generate heterogeneous, imperfect data. Robust AI systems must handle noise, gaps, and conflicting signals. Design questions include modality coverage, edge versus cloud processing, data retention policies, and resilience under degraded network conditions.

Models and intelligence

In operational environments, model performance is constrained by latency, drift, explainability, and auditability. Trust depends not only on accuracy, but on predictable behavior, clear override mechanisms, and compliance with regulatory requirements.

Orchestration and workflows

Operational value emerges when AI systems trigger and manage actions: incident routing, ticket generation, device reconfiguration, and documented decision-making. Integration with IT service management, security operations, building management, and identity systems defines return on investment.

Governance and security

Governance frameworks encompass patch management, lifecycle commitments, access control, network segmentation, and evidence for procurement audits. In 2026, these elements are no longer optional differentiators but baseline requirements for market participation.

Strategic implications for 2026

For technology providers, differentiation lies in operational guarantees rather than generic AI claims. For enterprises and institutions, AI adoption increasingly resembles a systems migration rather than a tool purchase. For the Barcelona ecosystem, the competitive advantage is deployment density: the ability to validate integrated AI systems in complex, real-world environments.

Indicators to watch throughout 2026 include stricter security language in tenders, growth in edge inference deployments, convergence between AV integrators and cybersecurity services, expansion of managed AI operations, and education platforms embedding governance by default.

Strategic Outlook

ISE 2026 confirms a structural shift. Artificial intelligence has become the control layer of integrated environments, while cybersecurity has become the mandatory gateway to adoption. The event’s focus on AI, security, creative technology, and education reflects not short-term trends but enduring budget priorities. For organizations building or buying integrated systems in Barcelona and beyond, the central challenge is no longer innovation alone, but the ability to operate, secure, audit, and scale AI-driven infrastructure over time.

Una frase en català: ISE 2026 confirma que la IA ja és la capa de control dels sistemes integrats, i que la ciberseguretat n’és el requisit imprescindible.