Digital producer Muki Kulhan chaired the event, which featured three managing directors: Ken Blakeslee (WebMobility); Mark Harrison, (the Digital Production Partnership) and Nigel Walley (media consultancy Decipher).

Blakeslee discussed products featured in his online review of the show, whatcaughtmyeye.com. “I’ve chosen enabling technology that offers consumers new ways of doing things,” he said, pointing to the number of companies mixing established technologies and assembling new tech for  different sectors.

“People have realised they can assemble systems from different technologies and progress to new solutions,” he added.

Harrison noted that the “internet of things” has been slow to take off in the home, although it is growing. But he reckoned that the huge number of constrained public spaces – such as hotels and leisure facilities – offered a massive market for the audiovisual industry.

“New screen technologies mean media will be everywhere,” he said. Voice recognition continues to grow – and is being fully integrated in many devices. Two years ago it was Amazon’s Alexa on all the stands – this year it was Google Assistant making a huge push, Harrison argued.

”It’s unbelievable what Google did at this year’s CES,” said Walley.

“There were Google stickers on almost every stand promoting Google Assistant, while 500 stands had Google people pitching compatibility – not to mention the fact the Google’s Android is becoming the default operating system for smart TVs,” he added.