Mad Systems

Mad Systems Mad Systems specializes in AV integration and the design, building and installation of interactive e

Mad Systems is an award-winning technology company specializing in audiovisual systems integration and interactive exhibits. Mad Systems uses the latest technology when designing A/V systems using non-proprietary equipment wherever possible, to create long lasting and easy to maintain technology for museums, visitor centers, and theme parks. A majority woman-owned company founded in 1998, Mad prov

ides a full range of solutions to the many challenges of A/V presentations including everything from interactive computer systems to video display solutions.

InfoComm Show is only two weeks away.If you'll be at the show, let's connect. We'd love to share what we're working on, ...
06/03/2026

InfoComm Show is only two weeks away.

If you'll be at the show, let's connect. We'd love to share what we're working on, learn more about your upcoming projects, and explore opportunities to collaborate.

Schedule a time to meet with our team: tinyurl.com/mad-infocomm26

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Vegas.

05/26/2026

The most important AI question for museums is not which model.

It is where the model runs.

For the last few years, the default assumption has been that capable AI lives somewhere else. A cloud service. A vendor endpoint. A subscription. An API. The assumption was that local was a degraded substitute, an underpowered fallback, a compromise for institutions that could not afford the real thing.

That assumption is already aging out.

At AAM 2026 last week, we put Alice® Local on a pedestal in Philadelphia. The hardware was a local computer small enough to carry in under your arm. The AI model running on it was in the multi-billion-parameter range at 8-bit quantization. No internet connection was required for the AI demonstration. The model is not named, because the model is not the point.

The point is that a relatively modest local setup is already doing meaningful work.
Now extrapolate. Local hardware is getting faster. Local models are getting better. The cost curve is improving. In eighteen months, what we demonstrated at AAM will look quaint. In thirty-six months, it will look conservative.

For museums, this changes the architecture decision. When AI runs inside the venue, the institution can ask cleaner questions. What does the AI know? Who controls that knowledge? Where does inference happen? What leaves the premises? What is logged? What can be audited? What happens if the network is down? Can this be governed by policy rather than by hope?

A museum that runs personalization through a cloud has accepted, often without saying so out loud, that its visitors are partially the cloud provider's visitors. The provider sees the signals. The provider's jurisdiction touches the data. The provider's terms of service govern what happens next. None of those are things a director, a trustee, or a general counsel would consent to if asked plainly.

A museum that runs personalization locally, under institutional governance, has not accepted any of that. The visitors are the institution's visitors. The data stays in the building. The jurisdiction is the institution's own. The policy the AI obeys is the policy the institution writes.

Alice® Local is early. We will say that plainly. But it is early in the way that matters. It points in the right direction.

Local is not a step backward. For many institutions, local is the condition that makes AI acceptable at all.

05/24/2026

Going home from AAM 2026.

The local AI conversation landed. The reaction to Alice® Local was not about novelty. It was about control. Museum leaders understand why it matters when inference can happen inside the venue.

The smartphone is no longer a distraction from the museum visit. Used properly, it is part of the visitor's expectation of continuity, language, pacing, and access. Alice® OnBoard makes that practical without turning the entire gallery into an app project.

WorldModel™ instigated some good conversationst. It belongs in the conversation after someone sees the MICRO-level proof and asks where the architecture goes at venue scale.

Thank you to everyone who came to Booth #1223. The follow-up conversations start now.

And for the people who said "we need to see the whole thing running," the answer is yes. That is why Wonderland exists. Come and see it - we'd love to show you!

05/23/2026

MuseumExpo closed yesterday. AAM continues today.

Four observations from Booth #1223 worth putting on the record before everyone scatters.

The cloud-only assumption in museum AI is breaking. The reaction to a real on-premises Alice® Local demonstration was not "interesting." It was closer to "finally." Museum leaders understand why it matters when inference can happen inside the venue.

Accessibility framed as architecture rather than as accommodation lands with institutional leadership in a way that compliance language never has. When we described Lory® and CaterPillar™, the interest was not in checklist conformance. It was in the architectural idea that accessibility should be part of the primary experience path.

Lifecycle came up more than anyone might expect. Museum leaders understand that visitor expectations are changing faster than capital projects can be rebuilt. They are asking how to avoid freezing today's assumptions into tomorrow's building.

Licensing and partnership came up exactly the way it should. Serious teams want clean commercial paths. We are open to that conversation. We deliver directly. We partner. We license. We collaborate with qualified teams when that is the right structure.

If we spoke this week and the conversation should continue, Wonderland in Orange, California is the right next step.

Booth #1223 was the beginning. The full environment is in Orange.

05/22/2026

Final hours of MuseumExpo at AAM 2026.

Booth #1223 is still running Alice® Local. The local AI is still on the pedestal. The network port is still empty. Alice® OnBoard is still delivering personalized content to the visitor's own phone.

The conversations are still exactly the ones we came to have. Where should AI run in a museum? What should a museum own? What should never leave the premises? How do we make personalization useful without making it creepy? How do we make accessibility part of the system instead of a parallel afterthought? How do we design a system that meets today's brief without closing off the next fifteen years? How do IP, licensing, partnership, and delivery stay clean on projects that involve designers, integrators, developers, fabricators, and operators?

If those are your questions, this is the window.

Booth #1223 until MuseumExpo closes today.

05/22/2026

One of the easiest parts of Alice® OnBoard to overlook is also one of the most important. It runs on the visitor's own smartphone.

That sounds simple until you unpack it.

The museum does not have to hand every visitor a dedicated device. The visitor does not have to learn a new object. The institution does not have to pretend that the phone in the visitor's hand is not already part of the visit.

Alice® OnBoard uses what people already carry. A QR or NFC start point. A chosen language. A depth preference. A visitor pace. A Body of Knowledge controlled by the institution. A personal path through the content that can be different for a Streaker, a Stroller, or a Student.

At AAM Booth #1223, Alice® OnBoard is running alongside Alice® Local. That pairing matters. The phone is the delivery surface. The local AI is the inference layer. The institution remains the author.

That is the architecture in one sentence.

For museums, this is practical. It does not require rebuilding every exhibit before personalization can begin. It can start with the devices visitors already carry and the knowledge the institution already owns.

Come see it at Booth #1223. Look for the empty network port.

05/22/2026

Day two at AAM Booth #1223.

The conversation I want to have today is accessibility. Not accessibility a quick tick on a checklist. Accessibility as architecture.

When accessibility is added late, everyone can feel it. A separate device. A separate track. A separate path. A separate experience. A visitor who already has to work harder is asked to work harder still. That is not the future we are building toward.

In our architecture, accessibility is not an afterthought. It is part of the same personalization logic as language, depth, pacing, interest, and visitor context.

Lory® is our parallel media layer. It supports synchronized audio, captions, translated content, sign language assets, calm media, and delivery through personal devices and compatible hearing technologies.

CaterPillar™ is our non-visual acoustic guidance system. It uses spatially located pulsed acoustic signals to help blind and low-vision visitors orient and move more independently.

It is cane-compatible, language-neutral, and does not require a wearable.

Alice® Local and Alice® OnBoard are what we are demonstrating at the booth. Lory® and CaterPillar™ are not on the booth this year.

Wonderland in Orange, California is where you can see these systems operating as part of the full AV++® environment.

Booth #1223 today. Wonderland after AAM.

05/21/2026

A note for designers, integrators, fabricators, media teams, developers, and prime contractors at AAM.

Mad Systems holds real IP in this territory. Personalized media delivery. Recognition-aware experience behavior. Accessible parallel media. Non-proprietary AV compute architecture. Governed AI operation in physical venues.

The work took years and cost real money. The patents exist so the work has a name, a date, and a defensible identity.

They do not have to make a project harder. Handled early, they make the path cleaner.
We deliver directly. We partner. We license. We collaborate with qualified teams when that is the right structure. The best time to have this conversation is before assumptions harden.

At AAM, that conversation is available at Booth #1223.

Come early. The clean path is usually the early path.

05/21/2026

At Booth #1223 today, there are five good questions to ask us.

First: how does Alice® Local run without sending AI inference to the cloud?

Second: what does Alice® OnBoard do on a visitor's own smartphone, without requiring a dedicated device for every guest?

Third: how does the Alice® Body of Knowledge keep institutional authorship intact?

Fourth: if the AI is local now, what happens as local models and local hardware get better?

Fifth: what does this mean for a museum that wants personalization, accessibility, multilingual content, and privacy without rebuilding the entire venue?

Those are the booth questions.

The bigger questions are available too. How does QuickSilver® create a fifteen-to-twenty-year upgrade path? How does CheshireCat® handle recognition and context without becoming surveillance? How does Lory® make accessibility a parallel media layer? How does CaterPillar™ make non-visual navigation part of the venue? How does LookingGlass™ Concierge help operators understand flow, density, and dwell? How does WorldModel™ turn individual intelligent behaviors into a governed venue architecture?

We are not expecting every visitor to need every answer. We are expecting serious people to ask serious questions.

That is why we came.

Booth #1223. AAM 2026. Look for the empty network port.

05/21/2026

MuseumExpo opens today.

Mad Systems is at AAM Booth #1223.

Running live: Alice® Local, with Alice® running on a local AI computer, no internet connection required for the AI demonstration. Alice® OnBoard, delivering personalized Alice® content to the visitor's own smartphone.

Available for the conversation: Traditional AV. QuickSilver®. QuickSilver® Retrofit. Alice®. Alice® Avatars. CheshireCat®. TeaParty®. Lory®. LookingGlass™ Concierge. CaterPillar™. WonderLens™. PixelsEverywhere™. the Deck™. LifeSaver™. TruCheck™. TruView™. AV++® Analytics. CheshireField™, WorldModel™.

The booth is not trying to be a circus. It is trying to make one point clearly.
If a museum wants AI-based personalization, the institution should be able to decide where the AI runs, what the AI knows, what the AI is allowed to say, who owns the data, and how the experience remains governable over time.

That is the conversation.

Booth #1223. Look for the local AI appliance and the empty network port.

Address

733 N Main Street
Orange, CA
92868

Opening Hours

Monday 7am - 3:30pm
Tuesday 7am - 3:30pm
Wednesday 7am - 3:30pm
Thursday 7am - 3:30pm
Friday 7am - 3:30pm

Telephone

+17142599000

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Mad Systems posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category