The power of sound in a virtual world

In the digital age, sound is proving to be the greatest connector of all, says Erik Vaveris, vice president of product management and CMO at Shure, and Brian Scholl, director of the Perception and Cognition Laboratory at Yale University. In an era where business, education, and even casual conversations occur via screens, sound has become a differentiating factor. We obsess over lighting, camera angles, and virtual backgrounds, but how we sound can be just as critical to credibility, trust, and connection. Both see audio as more than a technical layer: It's a human factor shaping how people perceive intelligence, trustworthiness, and authority in virtual settings. If you're willing to take a little bit of time with your audio set up, you can really get across the full power of your message and the full power of who you are to your peers, to your employees, your boss, your suppliers, and of course, your customers, says Vaveris. Scholl's research shows that poor audio quality can make a speaker seem less persuasive, less hireable, and even less credible. We know that [poor] sound doesn't reflect the people themselves, but we really just can't stop ourselves from having those impressions, says Scholl. We all understand intuitively that if we're having difficulty being understood while we're talking, then that's bad. But we sort of think that as long as you can make out the words I'm saying, then that's probably all fine. And this research showed in a somewhat surprising way, to a surprising degree, that this is not so. For organizations navigating hybrid work, training, and marketing, the stakes have become high. Vaveris points out that the pandemic was a watershed moment for audio technology. As classrooms, boardrooms, and conferences shifted online almost overnight, demand accelerated for advanced noise suppression, echo cancellation, and AI-driven processing tools that make meetings more seamless. Today, machine learning algorithms can strip away keyboard clicks or reverberation and isolate a speaker's voice in noisy environments. That clarity underpins the accuracy of AI meeting assistants that can step in to transcribe, summarize, and analyze discussions. The implications across industries are rippling. It empowers executives and creators alike to produce broadcast-quality content from the comfort of their home office. And it offers companies new ways to build credibility with customers and employees without the costly overhead of traditional production.