PTZOptics Insider: New AI Initiative, An Ownership Update, International Recognition, and More
March 27, 2026
Welcome to the PTZOptics Insider, your source for the latest updates on our products, events, and achievements. It’s been busy around the PTZOptics offices lately, with trade shows, awards and big announcements coming at a lightning fast pace. Let’s get you caught up!
Inside the New Horizon Hub
PTZOptics has officially launched VisualReasoning.ai, a new brand dedicated to bringing advanced AI into professional AV workflows. At its core is a powerful innovation: the ability for a video system to look at an image and answer questions about it in natural language, or respond to simple text instructions like “Is someone at the podium?” or “Find the person in the red jacket.”
Powered by Vision Language Models (VLMs), including the real-time Moondream model, Visual Reasoning AI adds a new layer of intelligence to PTZ cameras by allowing the camera to understand and describe what it’s seeing. Instead of relying on traditional face tracking or motion detection, users can describe exactly what they want to track – a presenter, a scoreboard, a hand gesture – and the system handles the rest without retraining, markers, or firmware updates.
- Visual Reasoning AI for Broadcast and ProAV, a free downloadable book by Paul Richards.
- A comprehensive video course series guiding users through API design and real-world system building.
- An open-source GitHub playground and upcoming mobile apps make it easy to start experimenting today.
There are more exciting developments on the way around Visual Reasoning AI, and we’ll update you in the next edition.
Meet PTZOptics’ New Owners – Us
There’s a new group of owners at PTZOptics, and they might look strangely familiar.
PTZOptics and its parent company, HSI, have turned the page to an exciting new chapter: becoming a 100% employee-owned company. Growing from our humble beginnings providing overhead projectors for classrooms, HSI has evolved into an innovative AV integrations company and a leading AV manufacturer and solutions provider.
Through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), the people who power the company’s innovation and service every day are now company owners. The transition rewards employees for their dedication, supports long-term growth and ensures continuity for customers and partners alike.
HSI owners had prepared for an ownership exit by transitioning day-to-day business operations to the next generation of management and ultimately sought a business succession strategy that would reward the commitment of their employees with the benefits of future success, sustain company growth and allow for a liquidity event for existing stakeholders. After a thorough analysis of alternative options, a 100% employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) achieved all the desired goals for the business’ evolution.
New to the PTZOptics Team
And speaking of our growing global presence, PTZOptics was happy to announce the recent expansion of our international team to include Juan Rodriquez, our first international sales representative. Based in Spain, Juan will be part of our expansion through the European market.
Juan is well-versed in PTZOptics products and services, having worked in distribution for Exertis, and is part of the team that brought our products to Europe in the first place. He joined PTZOptics at ISE 2026 and served as an enthusiastic addition to the trade show team.
A Great Visit to ISE
From Feb. 3-6, PTZOptics joined the world of AV integration at Europe’s biggest show, ISE 2026 in Barcelona, Spain. Our team of six made the most of the event with nearly nonstop meetings and interactions with longtime customers, curious visitors, and future partners.
In the process, we got to share some of the most exciting products we were featuring at the show, as well as give some hints about the cool things coming down the pike. Claudia Barbiero and Jon Roberts from the PTZOptics team were front and center. Here are a few of their standout appearances.
Some International Recognition
One of the most exciting announcements to come out of our visit to Barcelona was the SimplTrack3 being named Best of Show Award winner in the AVTechnology category.
There was plenty of competition in the category, and we were delighted to stand out against our peers when being judged on innovation, ease of use, feature set, and real-world impact.
One Last Thing
PTZOptics has new and improved warranty documentation. Check it out!
Thanks for reading the PTZOptics Insider! We’ll be back soon with updates on everything PTZOptics.
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