By Henry Clifford Humans are great at pattern recognition. We were already tuning out outreach emails in general, and now the volume appears to be turning up as we see more AI-created social media posts and emails that are similarly formatted. When an email has been obviously composed by AI, it is not only completely void of meaning and an annoyance to a prospect, but because it’s been composed using a machine, we now risk triggering anger in a prospect because it’s clear that a human didn’t create it. Now, instead of just barely being deleted, it’s being observed that your company is using automation to force multiply and scale meaningless communications, which can do brand damage.

High-fidelity streaming service offers a first listen to studio-grade audio ahead of its official mid-summer launch.

More than 2300 solar panels have been added to the roof of its new 100,000-square-foot building.

September 16-17 expo and educational platform at Dallas Market Center attracts lighting designers, architects, specifiers, and other design professionals.

The most visited stories on residentialsystems.com from April 25–May 1, 2025.

By Brent Sonnek-Schmelz I am fortunate to have a unique perspective on tariffs from three angles: as a manufacturer through my role at Origin Acoustics; from a business strategy standpoint via my partnership with Matt Bernath at VITAL where we work with integrators every day; and from a policy and advocacy perspective by serving on the CEDIA government affairs committee. And I can tell you it’s painful from every direction. No matter which way you look at it, the only guarantee is that no one knows what is going to happen next, and uncertainty is what we have to prepare for.

By Haley Patterson It may (or may not) come as a surprise that most business owners and their leadership teams in our industry are operating at about 20% strong. With simple processes and intentional leadership, they could be running at 80% strong or better by strengthening the Six Key Components of their business. The first component is Vision.

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This special issue is designed to assist custom installers who are just venturing into the world of lighting and offer some advice for those who continue to navigate this lucrative product category. It features some of the top experts and companies in the lighting and CI worlds, many of who are giving presentations and exhibiting at Lightapalooza 2025.

For this Residential Systems Q&A, Furrion’s national sales manager Aaron Mellow and director of sales – residential awnings Jon Sweeney talk about why Furrion wants to be in the custom integration market, what sets their products apart from their competitors, the company’s plans for new products and CEDIA Expo, and more.

There is no doubt that the shading category is becoming popular with integrators as more and more get comfortable with the process of selling, ordering and installing them. In this supplement, we talk to CI shading pros about how they maximize efficiency across their motorized shade projects.