CEDIA UK smart home study tracks AI growth in £2.2bn market

What happened

CEDIA’s Smart Home Analysis places the UK professional smart home sector at £2.2bn, combining a survey of purchasing influencers with additional industry data. The research, conducted with consultancy The Farnsworth Group, examines the businesses specifying and installing residential technology, their commercial expectations and the pressures affecting delivery. Its findings connect technology demand with staffing, costs and changes in client spending.

AI produced one of the most pronounced findings. The research reports an 83% increase in its use within businesses and a 51% increase in customer demand. Those figures describe increases, rather than the proportion of firms or customers using AI. They sit alongside concerns about keeping up with digital change, showing that adoption and the demands of staying current are developing together.

Despite those pressures, two-thirds of respondents anticipated higher revenue during the following year. That confidence sits within a market where lighting, networking and integrated control account for prominent areas of spending. The report therefore presents neither an unqualified expansion story nor a general retreat: firms expect opportunities, but face constraints on the people and resources available to deliver projects.

The background

The quantitative study draws on 128 completed questionnaires from professionals with a say in purchasing. Participants included security and AV installers, networking specialists, electricians and general contractors. The sample consequently reaches beyond dedicated custom integration companies, capturing some of the neighbouring trades that also supply and install smart home products. That breadth matters when interpreting both product choices and reported business conditions.

Respondents were concentrated in Southern England, and more than 70% had worked in the residential sector for longer than ten years. The findings therefore carry a substantial contribution from established operators in that region. They should be read with that respondent profile in mind, rather than as an evenly distributed account of every geography and business age across the UK.

Men represented 92% of respondents and women 8%. Ryan Bardach, CEDIA’s director of research, cautioned that this split does not necessarily describe the wider industry. The study did not encompass the broader workforce across manufacturers, distributors, manufacturers’ representatives, trade organisations and industry media. He suggested that including those groups would show a smaller gender imbalance than the survey recorded.

Bardach also linked the result to routes into integration. Many practitioners begin in electrical work, building or other trades where men have historically formed most of the workforce. His explanation places the survey result in the context of recruitment pathways, while maintaining the distinction between the people answering this study and the wider businesses and organisations supporting the sector.

Lighting leads the opportunity rankings

Lighting ranked as the strongest business opportunity for the next 12 months. One participant singled out light quality as an area of interest, adding a specification consideration to the category’s commercial prominence. Lighting and shading together also held the leading position in spending, with networking next and integrated control behind it. Those rankings distinguish current expenditure from expectations about future opportunities.

Dedicated spaces, including home cinemas, attracted the smallest share of responses on future business opportunities, at 6%. Bardach attributed some of the difference to housing: UK properties generally offer less space than homes in markets such as the US. Lighting, by contrast, serves every home and can often be installed by a local electrician without the specialist skills a cinema may require.

The findings suggest scope for more design advice and consultation around lighting, networks and control, although the research does not demonstrate that firms are already making that transition. For dealers tracking the control category alongside these spending priorities, related product coverage includes Crestron Home’s native Multiview support for six sources. The survey itself does not assess that feature.

Costs and client wealth complicate forecasts

Respondents identified shortages of skilled staff and increasing costs much more frequently than client budgets or available time as business challenges. Economic uncertainty adds to those operating pressures, while businesses must also follow technological developments. The distinction is important: the most frequently reported obstacles concern the capacity and cost of delivering work, rather than simply whether customers express interest in projects.

Political uncertainty also featured in explanations for weaker revenue expectations. Participants referred to international financial markets and slower project activity, with some linking delays or reduced activity in London to ultra-high-net-worth residents leaving. These are respondents’ accounts of the pressures they face, rather than evidence that any single factor explains changes across the whole UK professional smart home market.

The report also separates accumulated wealth from money available for a particular installation. Bardach said affluent households may have some protection against a downturn but can still become more reluctant to commit substantial sums to renovation and improvement work. For businesses serving wealthy clients, the research therefore challenges the assumption that a high level of personal wealth necessarily translates into an unchanged project budget.

What people are saying

Bardach identified the AI findings as the study’s biggest surprise. He had expected the technology to have an effect, but said the reported increases in business use and customer demand exceeded his expectations. His response concerns the scale of the change; the findings presented do not identify particular AI products or establish how firms are deploying them in their daily operations.

On manufacturers, the research shows leadership differing by application rather than one supplier dominating throughout the home. Control4 holds the leading position for whole-home control, while Sonance leads outdoor speakers. Those results indicate that specialist suppliers retain strong positions in individual categories, even as products familiar to consumers also appear prominently in professional installation work.

Sonos stands apart for its presence across several audio categories. The study identifies it as a leading choice for streaming speakers, soundbars, subwoofers and speakers used inside rooms. That spread contrasts with the more category-specific pattern elsewhere in the findings and raises the question of how consumer familiarity influences products selected for professionally delivered residential projects.

Bardach pointed to clients as a substantial source of dealer referrals and noted that electricians and builders also install these products. He suggested that those trades may know fewer specialist industry suppliers than dedicated integrators do, helping explain the appeal of a widely recognised name such as Sonos. His account links brand selection with both client involvement and the backgrounds of installers.

What happens next

CEDIA is preparing another UK study examining pay and recruitment after identifying skilled labour as a major dealer concern. That will move the research focus towards the employment conditions behind the staffing problem. Related workforce coverage includes the CEDIA Foundation scholarship opening across five countries, a separate development from the planned UK salary and recruitment study.

Bardach also highlighted residential construction and property transactions as indicators to watch. In the US, he said slower home sales and new building activity are likely to affect smart home technology businesses, if that effect has not already emerged. He described the UK as facing comparable economic pressures, placing integration demand within the broader conditions affecting housing and construction.

Maintenance and upgrades offer another measure of those conditions. Bardach said smaller builders were already reporting fewer requests for such work. That observation extends the caution beyond large new installations or substantial renovations: existing properties can also generate less activity. It adds a further qualification to the survey’s positive revenue outlook without establishing how widely that slowdown applies across integration businesses.

Why this matters

For integrators, the findings place growth expectations alongside practical limits on staffing and delivery costs. Lighting, networking and control offer identifiable areas of demand, but wealthy clients do not necessarily have readily available project funding. The respondent mix also shows that builders and electricians participate in product selection and installation. For clients, that makes the distinction between broadly available products and work requiring specialist expertise an important part of the picture described by the research.