'It has to go beyond a display company': I spoke to the CEO of a TV manufacturer about AI, the monetization of TVs software, and how TV needs to evolve

Date:
Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:43:47 +0000

Description:
Just how can TV evolve? I spoke to to Balaji Krishnan, CEO of Displace to get his thoughts on what needs to happen in the TV market.

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breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are
now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter AV Insider AV Insider is our new series of interviews with influential people inside the AV industry. From execs to the people behind the technology, every Friday we'll bring you a new perspective on world of TV and audio. See the full list of AV Insider articles Every year, there are innovations in the world of TV panels, ranging from OLED upgrades to next-gen RGB-backlit sets. The smart TV platforms get just a ton of upgrades too, but these dont generally get as much attention or as much innovation. Some brands are
adding new AI features for picture and sound enhancement, but the core of the operating system (OS) in the TV stays similar each year. I recently spoke to Balaji Krishnan, founder and CEO of Displace, a US-based TV manufacturer with a couple of groundbreaking launches under its belt and what stands out is that its TVs are wireless, capable of fixing themselves to the wall and running from batteries. It launched an OLED you could mount anywhere first , and then followed up with a smaller 27-inch TV that again can be stuck anywhere . Article continues below You may like Ive chosen the best TVs you can buy to suit every budget, after hundreds of hours of real-world testing Here's what I want to see from every major TV brand in 2026 Panasonics 2026
TV line-up is here, and I saw it in action

Displace's most recent launch is the Pro TV 2, an OLED which features the Displace OS, the companys own smart TV platform. I discussed with Balaji what he sees as the future of TV, as a relatively new company in the space. More than a display While TVs are great as displays, Balaji believes TVs need to master the software side of things too. (Image credit: Future) If you want to move the needle in this TV market, you have to go beyond a display product, Balaji says when I ask him about his thoughts on the current TV market. If
you look at all the screens we have at home, the biggest screen is the TV.

But Balaji thinks TVs need to get smarter. Ironically, its the dumbest screen we all have at home. My watch screen is a smarter product.

While smart TVs do provide access to streaming apps and some are starting to introduce more AI-based smart features for content recommendation and picture and sound enhancement, Balaji believes the smart TV platforms in these TVs
are lacking. The smart TVs these companies sell dont work well in terms of software. The user experience sucks. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals,
and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Balaji sees it that people are using their TVs purely to stream video content and even then they would rather go for a streaming device such as Roku Stick, Apple TV or Fire Stick, as they provide a better user experience than the TVs own software.

So, what does Balaji feel needs to happen in order for TVs to get smarter? This is where Displace OS and the native AI of the Pro TV 2 come into play,
in his view. Displace OS is a browser-based platform and the goal on
Displaces part is inter-connectivity with other devices. We built a browser-based operating system because that is where you connect a lot of
your day-to-day activities, be it your email, your Amazon commerce, anything to do with the internet.

In a style out of the likes of Blade Runner or Minority Report , Balaji believes the TV can become the main hub of the home, citing it as the consolidation of all your activities. What to read next Samsung built a stunning micro-LED TV where the bezel is also a screen Want a big new TV for the Superbowl? Our tool finds you the perfect fit I swapped my big-brand TV for TCLs mini-LED marvel

While brands such as LG with its webOS platform and Samsung s own Tizen platform are starting to include more daily activity based apps and home pages, theyre by no means comprehensive.

So, what does Displace OS and the Pro TV 2 think it should offer that these other companies software doesnt? I briefly mentioned it above: native AI. AI on TVs While brands like Samsung use the term AI with its TVs, it's not AI as most people think of it in a world of ChatGPT (Image credit: Samsung) If
youve been following TVs for a few years now, youll have noticed AI has
really crept its way into the lexicon. LG, responsible for delivering some of the best OLED TVs on the market, has AI processors and AI features such as AI Picture Wizard, AI Search and so on. Samsung has rebranded its TV lineup as Vision AI TVs, with a focus on AI-based picture features.

I asked Balaji if these AI features are really AI in the current sense of the word as I havent seen these features as really being 'AI in the sense we
mean it in world with ChatGPT and Google Gemini and he agreed. You walk down the aisle of these TVs at CES Hisense , TCL , everyone was saying AI TV. All these AI technologies that they call AI, to your point, it is not AI. They just do better contrast, better picture quality, depending upon the ambient lighting and all that stuff, but that's not AI per se, it's more like, you know, optimization of your picture quality.

So, what does Displace 2.0 and the Displace Pro TV 2 offer in terms of AI? Some of the headline features include pause-to-shop, which detects products
on screen when content is paused and finds purchasing options aligned with a users preferences."

Theres also gesture control, live conversational search where a user could
ask for a specific scene, and even a personalized news agent where users can select a text based source, such as TechRadar, and Pro TV 2 will generate video news channels based on the chosen source.

While this all sounds like more advanced use of AI capabilities, some of its also sounds pretty dystopian. I naturally had to ask Balaji about security. For all these customized and personalized touches that Pro TV 2s AI brings, youd think thered need to be a lot of data collected. But, the Pro TV 2 is advertised as a "privacy-first AI TV".

It should not be sending any of your personal information to the cloud, so that is why we built NPUs inside the TV," sas Balaji. "But it has to access the internet to bring internet data that is personalized for you based on
your personal information.

I wouldn't feel comfortable connecting my Amazon account with a third-party cloud provider where they can actually get all my data and then use it for other purposes, Balaji says, by way of explanation on his "privacy-first"
with the Pro TV 2 and Displace OS. Post purchase and ads A 55-inch TV for $200, in exchange for lots of ads on display via data collection: is it worth it? This is the 'Telly' TV (Image credit: Telly) Advertising is always a much-discussed topic when it comes to TV. Most brands will have some sort of ads in their smart TV platform, most often on the home screen. More and more are starting to implement ads in a TVs screensaver mode, such as Roku and LG.

To Balaji, this seems like a companys attempt at monetizing after purchase. I see this to be a more desperate measure for the TV companies to monetize.
They have been trying to monetize in various different ways, they were not succeeding, and the only way that they could monetize now is through ads and selling data.

In fact, Balaji discussed the company Telly, which sells a 55-inch LCD TV for $200. In exchange for this ridiculously low price, there is a constant banner of ads at the bottom of the screen. And again, that means giving over data. Would you be willing to compromise your privacy for $200?, Balaji says. I would not do it, but apparently they are getting into that direction.

Balaji believes that the hardware side of the business just doesnt make
money, hence why companies have gone down this route. I think all these
things are happening because they think hardware is a low-margin business, so they have to make money beyond hardware, and the only easy path that they can see is to collect data and sell data, which I think is not good for this ecosystem.

Post-purchase monetization, via pause-to-shop and other features, and the evolution of the TV as just a screen seems to be at the core of Displaces thinking, which Balaji calls a significant shift from the traditional, legacy way of thinking about TV.

It will be interesting to see if other brands adopt this way of thinking, or whether the money from data and ads is just too tempting to let go. And,
while were seeing brands like LG adopt AI into its TVs in other ways, such as content discovery, itll be interesting to see if it gets used with this post-purchase monetization in mind Balaji makes the case that it's the
better monetization option, but I wonder if everyone will see it as the
better option. Thinking of buying a new TV? Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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