How Integrators Can Start Using AI: Practical Advice From Sonance CEO Ari Supran
The best way for an integrator to start using AI is to pick a real problem, watch someone solve something similar, and try it yourself. You don't need technical skills. What makes AI useful is the context you give it about your business: your documents, your brand voice and your processes.
That's the approach Ari Supran, CEO of Sonance, has taught in talks across the industry. On episode 2 of 1NSIGHTS, he joined host Jason Griffing, OneVision's Director of Product, to show how he uses AI day to day and what AV companies can build without writing code.
What's stopping integrators from using AI?
Mostly skills and time. In a live poll during the episode, 51% of attendees named skills as their biggest roadblock, with time second.
Supran answers the skills concern with his own background. He studied geography and sociology, doesn't write code and doesn't consider himself technical. In his view, AI has made technology accessible to anyone who can describe what they want in plain language.
On time, he finds AI saves him more than it costs. He sees the current gap as an advantage for early adopters: people using AI well can simply get more done than people who aren't.
How do you learn AI without a technical background?
Watch, pause and try. Supran's method:
- Find a demo. Watch someone use an AI tool for a specific task on YouTube.
- Pause and personalize. Swap in a similar problem from your own business.
- Try it right away. Do it yourself before moving on.
Each attempt adds a tool to what he calls his skill toolkit, so when a new problem comes up, he already knows which feature fits. When you get stuck, ask the AI. If you don't know how to write a prompt, ask it to write one for you.
Griffing added a technique that works on almost any project: describe what you're doing, then ask the AI to ask you three questions, one at a time, to clarify it. The questions surface things you wouldn't have considered.
Why does AI give generic answers, and how do you fix it?
Because it doesn't know your business. Supran says prompt engineering matters less now than context engineering: giving the model instructions, documents, websites and examples before you ask it anything.
Every major AI tool has a place to store that context, such as custom GPTs in ChatGPT, Projects in Claude and Gems in Gemini. Supran calls these containers. Each one holds:
- Instructions: who the AI should act as and how it should respond.
- Knowledge: documents, web pages and examples about your company.
- Memory: what it learns about you over time, which you can review and edit.
A practical first container for most AV companies is a brand voice assistant. Load your company's beliefs, positioning and writing samples, and every client email or announcement it helps with will sound like you. Supran never asks AI to write from scratch. He starts with a draft, then uses editing tools that let him revise one paragraph at a time and accept or reject each suggestion.
Can integrators build their own apps with AI?
Yes, through what's known as vibe coding: describing an app in plain English and letting an AI tool build it. Supran's process:
- Describe the idea to an AI assistant and ask for a basic product requirements document.
- Paste that into a vibe coding tool. Most offer a free tier.
- Test the result, then keep asking for changes or ideas on what to add next.
Sonance built a simple app that checks shipping invoices against its carrier contract line by line. On one invoice, it found a $3,655 overcharge and pointed to the exact contract clause behind each line. Supran also built an interior design app in a few minutes during the episode. Griffing noted an integrator could build something similar to help clients visualize theater layouts.
Supran is clear about the limits. Anything that handles sensitive data, logins or payments needs a technical person to build the back end securely. A quick prototype still speeds up that conversation, because developers can see what you mean instead of reading a description.
Will AI replace jobs at integration companies?
Supran believes it depends on why a company adopts it. Sonance, a privately held company with more than 330 employees, uses AI to remove manual work so people can spend more time on customers. One example is cutting time spent on order entry so the inside sales team can talk with dealers. He acknowledges the risks and expects disruption, but believes the better choice is to learn AI and use it carefully rather than wait.
Watch the full conversation
Ari Supran - Sonance | Unpacking AI: Tools & Techniques for Integrators
1NSIGHTS Podcast
Supran and Griffing also demo AI writing and editing tools, and build an app from scratch live during the episode.
About 1NSIGHTS
1NSIGHTS by OneVision explores how integrators, operators and industry leaders think, build and adapt in a fast-changing custom integration landscape. Recorded live and shaped by audience questions, each episode goes past surface-level trends to the real decisions and trade-offs behind growing smarter and staying competitive. Explore all episodes →
