Acoustic surface treatment — panels, ceiling tiles, carpet — reduces reverberation and lowers the ambient noise floor by 3–10 dB in typical applications. This is meaningful background improvement that makes the overall acoustic environment more comfortable. However, it cannot achieve speech privacy, cannot bring ambient levels below 40 dB in active open-plan environments, and cannot address the call audio quality problem. For organisations where the primary noise complaint is conversational speech distraction during calls and focus work, surface treatment alone will not deliver a satisfactory outcome. It is best deployed as a complementary layer alongside acoustic enclosure.