How Pinebridge Investments Future-Proofed Their London HQ with a Standardised Microsoft Teams Rooms Strategy

Chris Gore
1 day ago
4 min read

Hybrid work has exposed a hard truth for many organisations: most meeting rooms weren’t designed for the way people actually work today.

Too many offices still rely on legacy AV systems, inconsistent room setups, and “figure-it-out-yourself” meeting experiences that frustrate staff and undermine collaboration. The result? Wasted time, poor meeting equity, and technology that quietly becomes a blocker rather than an enabler.

PineBridge Investments faced this exact challenge at their London headquarters—and made a decisive move to fix it.

This case study is a great example of what happens when AV is treated not as an afterthought, but as a core part of workplace strategy.

The Challenge: Legacy Systems and Inconsistent Experiences

Before the upgrade, PineBridge’s meeting spaces reflected a familiar enterprise problem.

Over time, different rooms had evolved with different technologies, varying standards, and inconsistent user experiences. Some spaces worked better than others. Some relied heavily on user knowledge. And none delivered a truly seamless hybrid meeting experience.

With multiple room sizes in use—from 6-person and 8-person meeting rooms to 12-person boardroom-style spaces, as well as shared collaboration zones, social areas, and reception spaces—the lack of standardisation was becoming increasingly visible.

The brief was clear:

Replace legacy AV systems
Standardise the experience across all meeting spaces
Deliver a future-proof Microsoft Teams Rooms environment
Ensure meetings were intuitive, reliable, and equitable for both in-room and remote participants

This wasn’t about adding more tech. It was about making technology disappear into the background.

The Objective: One Unified Collaboration Ecosystem

PineBridge didn’t want a collection of impressive rooms that all worked differently.

They wanted a single, consistent AV ecosystem—one that users could walk into anywhere in the office and immediately know how to start a meeting.

The objective was to deploy a fully modernised, enterprise-grade Microsoft Teams Rooms environment that supported:

High-quality audio pickup and speech intelligibility
Clear, reliable video for hybrid meetings
Consistent user journeys across every room
Scalable infrastructure that could adapt as the workplace evolves

This meant thinking beyond individual rooms and designing the AV holistically across the entire floor.

The Solution: Standardisation at Scale

The solution delivered at PineBridge Investments was a complete redesign and upgrade of the audiovisual infrastructure across the London HQ, with a total project value of £140,000

Key elements of the deployment included:

Microsoft Teams Rooms across all meeting spaces
6-, 8-, and 12-person rooms built to the same operational standard
Ceiling-mounted displays for optimal sightlines and space efficiency
High-quality audio capture using Shure MXA910 ceiling microphones
DSP processing to ensure consistent sound quality across rooms
Premium cameras to support meeting equity for remote participants
Internal screen networks spanning collaboration, reception, and social areas

Crucially, the technology choices weren’t driven by brand loyalty—they were driven by reliability, interoperability, and long-term usability.

By standardising room types and component selections, PineBridge removed complexity from the user experience and reduced operational overhead for IT and facilities teams.

Why Audio Was the Real Game-Changer

In hybrid meetings, audio matters more than video—and PineBridge’s project reflects that reality.

The use of Shure MXA910 ceiling microphones paired with dedicated DSP processing ensured that voices were captured evenly throughout each space, regardless of where participants were seated.

This significantly improved:

Speech clarity
Remote participant comprehension
Meeting equity between in-room and virtual attendees

When audio “just works,” meetings feel calmer, shorter, and more productive. People stop repeating themselves. Remote attendees stop feeling like second-class participants.

This was a critical part of transforming the overall collaboration experience.

Beyond Meeting Rooms: AV as a Workplace Experience Layer

One of the most overlooked aspects of AV strategy is what happens outside formal meeting rooms.

At PineBridge, the project extended into:

Reception areas
Social spaces
Internal collaboration zones
Townhall and shared communication areas

This created a consistent visual and digital language throughout the office. Screens weren’t just displays—they became part of how the organisation communicated internally, welcomed visitors, and supported informal collaboration.

It’s a subtle shift, but an important one: AV stopped being “meeting room tech” and became part of the workplace experience itself.

The Outcome: Reliable, Intuitive, Future-Ready

The result was a fully modernised, standardised, and future-proof collaboration environment across PineBridge’s London HQ

Key outcomes included:

A consistent Microsoft Teams Rooms experience across all spaces
Dramatically improved hybrid meeting quality
Reduced friction for users starting and running meetings
Improved reliability for IT and facilities teams
An AV platform capable of scaling with future workplace changes

Most importantly, the technology now supports how people work—rather than dictating it.

What Other Organisations Can Learn from This Project

The PineBridge case study highlights a few lessons we see repeatedly across enterprise workplaces:

Standardisation beats customisation Consistent room experiences reduce training, frustration, and support calls.
Audio quality defines hybrid successIf people can’t hear clearly, nothing else matters.
AV should be designed as a system, not a product list The magic happens when rooms, spaces, and platforms work together.
Future-proofing starts with the right questions, not the right kit PineBridge’s success came from clarity on outcomes before technology choices.