What Will a Lighting OEM Look Like in 2036?
Industry veteran John LaCorte weighs in on the next big thing that will disrupt lighting: AI.
By John LaCorte
I have spent over 17 years in lighting, working on both the fixture and component sides of the business. I lived through the LED transition, and I think we may be at the beginning of another major change.
In 2006, most of us were talking about lamps, ballasts, fixtures, optics, distribution, and getting products specified. By 2016, LED had changed the business. Lighting manufacturers were becoming electronics companies whether they planned on it or not. Today, LED is mature and controls, sensors, software, and connectivity are becoming part of the fixture and the system around it.
That brings me to a question I find more useful than debating whether AI will eliminate jobs: What does a lighting OEM look like 10 years from now?
I am less interested in what the fixture looks like than in what the company behind it looks like.
2006: The fixture company
In 2006, a lighting OEM was still, at its core, a fixture company. Engineering, sourcing and manufacturing mattered — but so did specification, distribution and field relationships. You needed a good product, a rep network that could get it specified, distribution that could support it, and people who understood what happened when the product reached the jobsite.
Most information still moved through people. Sales found the opportunities, engineering reviewed specifications, estimating built quotations, purchasing worked the supply base, customer service entered orders, and marketing produced catalogs. Software helped, but people still moved the work through the company.
2016: The electronics company
LED changed far more than the light source. It brought electronics deeper into the luminaire and forced fixture companies to learn a different business. Drivers, PCBs, thermal management, optics, binning, and color consistency became part of everyday product development while product cycles accelerated.
The speed of the transition was real. U.S. Department of Energy research shows that LED installations roughly doubled from 2016 to 2018, reaching about 2.3 billion units and roughly 30 percent of U.S. general illumination installations. The industry adapted quickly because it had to.
ERP, CRM, photometric software, and digital product information made the business more efficient, and manufacturing became more automated. Even with those changes, people still moved most of the work from one system and one department to the next.
2026: The connected lighting company
Fast forward 10 years later and a good LED product by itself is no longer enough to separate an OEM from the field. Controls, sensors, configurability, software and connectivity now sit alongside application knowledge and the basic question of whether the system is easy to specify, install and support.
That shift is measurable. Signify reported 167 million connected light points at the end of 2025. The 2026 IES Progress Committee review also identified the continued convergence of lighting and controls as a major industry trend. AI is now entering that discussion, but mainly as decision support in areas such as product research, substitutions, schedules, specifications, submittals, commissioning, and troubleshooting.
This is where I think we need to be careful. Most companies are already using AI for emails, meeting summaries, research, and marketing content. That may improve individual productivity, but it does not change how the company operates. The larger opportunity begins when AI is built into the workflow itself: reviewing specifications, preparing quotations, identifying supply risk, creating documentation, and moving information across departments. That is where AI starts to affect speed, cost, capacity, and customer response.
2036: The intelligent lighting company?
I put a question mark after 2036 for a reason. Nobody knows exactly what this business will look like 10 years from now, and I do not trust predictions that pretend otherwise. We can, however, look at what is happening now and make a reasonable case for where parts of the business are heading.
Take an RFQ. Today it can move through sales, specification review, engineering, estimating, and purchasing before a quote goes back to the customer. Each step serves a purpose, but teams spend a lot of time collecting information, checking requirements, and moving the opportunity from one person to the next.
An AI-enabled workflow could take the first pass at the specification, flag requirements and exceptions, compare products, build a preliminary BOM, and assemble the information needed for a quotation. Engineering would still have to validate the technical answer, and sales would still own the commercial decision and the customer. What changes is the amount of routine work surrounding those decisions.
The same thinking applies to sourcing, engineering, operations, and controls. AI can help monitor component risk, speed documentation, review specifications, and organize submittals. Over time, connected controls may also use more building data to improve how lighting works with other systems. None of that removes the need to verify photometrics, thermal performance, electrical requirements, safety, code compliance, or the actual application.
I do not expect every one of these functions to become autonomous. I do think enough of the workflow will change that OEMs need to decide where AI creates real value and where experienced people still need to own the answer.
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About the author
John LaCorte is Chief Growth Officer at NewEnergy LLC. He has held various executive roles over nearly 20 years at Hubbell, OttLite Technologies, BIOS Lighting, and Volt Lighting.
