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Hikvision launches its ProAV offering, bringing together a broad portfolio of audiovisual products and unified management platforms. By offering partners a more coordinated approach to project planning, integration, deployment, and ongoing operation, Hikvision ProAV is designed to reduce unnecessary complexity and support more cohesive experiences for the people who use each space. “For many integrators, a major challenge in an audiovisual project is not any single product, but coordinating the different elements involved,” said Wenson Zhou, Product Marketing Director at Hikvision. “Hikvision ProAV brings together broader audiovisual capabilities and supporting resources to help partners manage this complexity more efficiently and create better experiences for users.” Local device management Hikvision ProAV covers complementary capability areas, addressing the visual, interactive, and audio requirements of a wide range of projects. Unified management platforms: HikCentral supports centralized local device management, while HikMedio brings selected capabilities to the cloud. Together, they enable device monitoring, configuration, operation, and content creation, scheduling, and publishing across single or multiple sites. LED display and control: A broad selection of LED displays, LED controllers, video wall controllers, and related software supports visual presentation, signal control, and multi-screen management across projects of different scales. WonderHub interactive display: Designed for collaboration and content presentation, WonderHub interactive displays help users share ideas, present information, and work together in classrooms, training spaces, and enterprise environments. The broader WonderHub portfolio also supports visual communication across a variety of commercial applications. Professional and commercial audio: The audio product lineup supports applications ranging from sound reinforcement and conferencing to background music and other commercial audio needs, helping deliver clear and appropriate sound across different types of spaces. Together, these product areas give partners broader choice within one portfolio. They can select and combine the technologies required for each project while considering the visual, interactive, and audio experience of the space as a whole. Centralized local management A broad product portfolio only creates value when it is practical to work with. Hikvision ProAV therefore focuses not only on product coverage, but also on how audiovisual projects are planned, integrated, deployed, managed, and supported. Because the core products are all developed in-house, partners can streamline product selection and technical coordination. This can help reduce some of the complexity involved in sourcing and combining products from multiple suppliers. Once a system is deployed, effective management becomes just as important as installation. HikCentral provides centralized local management for supported devices, while HikMedio extends selected management capabilities to the cloud. Depending on the project setup, these tools can help teams monitor device status, manage configurations, operate supported devices, and create, schedule, and publish content more efficiently across single or multiple sites. Designed around the experience Ultimately, audiovisual technology derives value from what people can see, hear, understand, and do within a space, with each product supporting the intended experience. At live events, LED displays and professional audio create coordinated visual and sound experiences. In classrooms and training spaces, WonderHub interactive displays and audio products support presentations, idea sharing, and participation. In enterprise meeting rooms, interactive displays and conferencing audio enable clearer collaboration between on-site and remote participants. Operationally demanding environments The same principle applies in operationally demanding environments. In command centers, LED displays, controllers, video wall controllers, and software organize multiple visual sources for coordinated decision-making. In retail and commercial spaces, visual displays and commercial audio communicate information while supporting the atmosphere. By helping simplify how audiovisual projects are planned, integrated, delivered, and managed, the launch of Hikvision ProAV marks another step in the company’s efforts to shape every experience through technology.

Nedap, a global pioneer in Digital Twin Technology and access management solutions, announces the expansion of its partnership with Albert Heijn, with the introduction of Nedap Mobile Access across the offices of Albert Heijn, Etos, Gall & Gall, and Ahold Delhaize in the Netherlands. With mobile access, employees can securely access office buildings and facilities using their smartphones via Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. This reduces reliance on physical access badges while simplifying access management and improving convenience for employees. Long-standing relationship The expansion builds on a long-standing relationship between Nedap and Albert Heijn and reflects the increasing adoption of mobile credentials in large-scale retail environments. Mobile access enables employees to store their credentials on their devices and use near-field communication (NFC) technology to gain entry to secured areas. This supports more efficient credential management and a scalable, future-ready approach to access control. “Albert Heijn is taking a clear step by bringing mobile access to its employees,” said Tom van Middendorp, Solution Consultant at Nedap. “It makes access easier and more secure, using the devices people already rely on every day.” With this step, Nedap continues to support organizations in making the shift toward mobile-first access control.

Nedap, the global pioneer in RFID solutions, has been selected by Woolworths to deploy iD Cloud. In a rollout that will involve 217 Woolworths stores across South Africa, Nedap’s iD Cloud will optimize stock accuracy and in-store replenishment on a large scale as part of the brand’s long-term strategic objective to sell more with less stock. The deployment will see Woolworths’ Fashion, Beauty and Home stores benefit from the numerous value-driven features that form part of Nedap’s iD Cloud platform, its ability to create stock visibility across the value chain and to help streamline its in-store operations, while increasing on floor availability of its products to the customer. Proactively replenish products Woolworths will significantly lower the time spent counting and restocking the sales floor, which will assist in ensuring high on floor product availability for their customers. The technology will also concurrently provide up-to-date stock levels synchronized with their ERP (Enterprise resource planning) system allowing them to attain very high levels of stock accuracy. The iD Cloud solution ensures Woolworths store staff receive refill suggestions that allow them to proactively replenish products from the stock room to the sales floor when needed. This eliminates error-prone manual checks, leading to missed sales by not having an item available on the sales floor. Supply chain enhancements Christie Koorts, CIO at Woolworths, comments: “We chose Nedap because our extensive market evaluation has shown that no other supplier has the experience they do. Nedap has a clear roadmap vision for RFID, driven through a partnership approach, supported by the technical ability that iD Cloud offers. We are excited to start this journey with them. RFID is an important strategic asset for us, and we are looking at adding loss prevention measures and supply chain enhancements in the future.” Bruno Bakker, Director of Sales at Nedap, comments: “We are very pleased to start this long-term partnership with premium retailer Woolworths. With the large number of products flowing through their supply chain, it is crucial to have accurate insights into store stock to avoid them from being overstocked. By having accurate data, Woolworths can lower inventory levels without missing a sale and using the money that used to be spent on buying stock for further business optimization.” This project has been realized in close collaboration with Nedap partner StegTech.

Artificial intelligence is transforming video surveillance from a passive recording system into an intelligent platform for real-time decision-making. Powered by deep learning, computer vision, and edge computing, AI-driven video intelligence enables organizations to move beyond post-incident investigation toward proactive security, operational efficiency, and predictive insights. As governments, enterprises, and critical infrastructure expand surveillance networks, the focus is shifting from deploying more cameras to extracting actionable intelligence from vast volumes of video data. This evolution demands scalable, interoperable, and privacy-conscious solutions capable of delivering real-time analytics that enhance safety, streamline operations, and support smarter, faster decision-making across diverse environments — not controlled demos. AI-powered video intelligence No Indian company has answered that call more decisively than Videonetics. Ranked India’s #1 Video Management Software provider by Omdia and recognized among the top players in Asia-Pacific, Videonetics has spent over 17 years engineering AI-powered video intelligence from the ground up — not adapting foreign technology, but building it indigenously, for the conditions the real world actually presents. Today, its solutions power 150+ cities, 80+ airports, critical infrastructure, manufacturing facilities, financial institutions, and enterprise campuses across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. By combining advanced AI research with open architecture and customer-centric deployment strategies, Videonetics has positioned itself at the forefront of the industry’s transition toward intelligent video computing. Video intelligence platform Founded in 2008 by Dr. Tinku Acharya — an IEEE Fellow, holder of over 180 patents, and former Intel scientist — Videonetics began with a conviction that has never wavered: that video is one of the richest, most data-dense IoT sensors available, and that unlocking its potential requires purpose-engineered AI, not retrofitted analytics. That conviction produced India’s first indigenous Video Management Software. It has since produced a comprehensive AI-powered video intelligence platform serving smart cities, airports, critical infrastructure, manufacturing facilities, financial institutions, and enterprise campuses across 150+ cities in India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. According to Bhardwaj Naik, Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, the company’s founding insight was rooted in a clear market failure. “Organizations were deploying thousands of cameras, yet the intelligence extractable from footages remained practically zero. Surveillance was fundamentally reactive; a forensic tool used only after a failure occurred. Videonetics was built to change that equation.” Conventional facial recognition At the heart of the platform is “Deeper Look” — Videonetics’ proprietary deep learning engine, and the technology that separates the company from the field. Rather than limiting AI capabilities to conventional facial recognition or license plate identification, the platform analyses behavioral patterns, crowd dynamics, unusual activities, and structural anomalies, enabling organizations to detect risks before they escalate into incidents. One of the platform’s defining strengths is its fog computing architecture, which enables AI inference directly at the edge. Processing data closer to the source significantly reduces latency, allowing critical decisions be made almost instantly while remaining integrated with centralized command-and-control systems. This architecture becomes particularly valuable across airports, transportation networks, industrial facilities, and urban environments where rapid response is essential. Proprietary hardware traps Equally important is what Videonetics deliberately refuses to do. The platform is ONVIF compliant and hardware and OS agnostic — meaning it integrates across diverse camera ecosystems without locking customers into proprietary hardware. As Naik puts it plainly: “We refuse to lock our customers into proprietary hardware traps.” “At Videonetics, we are not building cameras smarter; we are building cities, industries, and institutions more intelligent. That is the standard we are setting, and we intend to own it globally." Next-generation analytics Adoption of AI-based video intelligence faces three persistent industry challenges, and Videonetics has structured its technology strategy specifically around overcoming each one. The first is what Naik calls the ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ trap, AI models that perform flawlessly in pristine demo environments but collapse under poor lighting, extreme weather, or chaotic real-world scenes. “DeeperLook” is hardened on massive, complex datasets drawn from some of the most demanding environments in India and globally. It is built to perform precisely where standard AI systems fail. The second is infrastructure debt. Most enterprises are constrained by legacy surveillance hardware that cannot easily accommodate next-generation analytics. Videonetics’ open, hardware and OS agnostic platform layers advanced AI capabilities directly over existing infrastructure — eliminating the need for costly, disruptive rip-and-replace programmes. Intelligent surveillance deployments The third is trust and compliance. As AI surveillance scales, privacy must be foundational — not an afterthought. Videonetics embeds privacy-by-design principles at the code level, ensuring advanced analytics and data anonymisation operate in strict alignment with global governance and data protection frameworks. Videonetics’ technology is already delivering measurable impact across numerous sectors, with one of its most notable deployments being the Andhra Pradesh RTGS CCTV360 project. Integrating approximately 15,000 cameras into a unified AI-powered command-and-control framework, the initiative represents one of the world’s largest intelligent surveillance deployments, supporting public safety, rapid law enforcement response, and large-scale situational awareness. Beyond public infrastructure, the company’s solutions are deployed across airports, banking, manufacturing, energy, retail, and smart city ecosystems, where AI-powered video intelligence contributes to faster threat detection, improved operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and enhanced workplace safety. Critical infrastructure management In the near future, Naik envisions video intelligence fully maturing from a security tool into an autonomous business intelligence layer spanning urban mobility, industrial safety, and critical infrastructure management. The category is expanding; the question is who defines it. For Videonetics, the answer is unambiguous. The company’s long-term vision is absolute global leadership in True AI-powered video computing — delivering technology powerful enough for the world’s most demanding environments, and deployable enough for the world’s fastest-growing cities and industries. The goal: to enable organizations to operate with greater visibility, faster decision-making, and enhanced resilience in an increasingly connected world. After 17 years of indigenous innovation, a #1 ranking in India, and deployments that set global benchmarks, Videonetics is not chasing that standard. It is setting it.

Mul-T-Lock and Leeds Lock Centre are marking more than 20 years of working together, reflecting a long-established partnership shaped by technical expertise, professional trust and a shared commitment to well-engineered mechanical security. Leeds Lock Centre has been part of Mul-T-Lock’s authorized locksmith network for over two decades, supplying and fitting its products across domestic, commercial and specialist applications. Over that time, the relationship has developed in line with changes in both regulation and criminal attack methods, with product decisions guided by practical experience and performance rather than trend or aesthetics. Recognized security standards Most recently, Leeds Lock Centre has introduced MTL™300 Break Secure® 3XP Pro cylinder into its retail premises. The cylinder has been developed to respond to the increasingly sophisticated techniques used in forced entry and has been independently tested to meet the latest revisions of recognized security standards. Says Dennis, Martin and Antoaneta at Leeds Lock Centre: “We’ve been proud partners of Mul-T-Lock for over two decades, and the introduction of the MTL™300 Break Secure® 3XP Pro is a perfect example of why. This lock meets all required standards and offers the highest level of protection against emerging security threats. It’s a solution we’re confident recommending to our customers because it combines robust engineering with the peace of mind that comes from knowing their properties are well protected." Internal locking mechanism Built on the established MTL™300 platform, Break Secure 3XP Pro features a sacrificial front section designed to break away under attack, preventing access to the internal locking mechanism. It exceeds BS EN1303 Grade 6 requirements for durability, having passed one million accelerated operation cycles, and has been tested against current TS 007 3-star attack methods. It also meets the latest SS312 Diamond standards and has achieved Secured by Design accreditation, confirming its suitability for use across a wide range of applications. Dimple key technology Alongside physical resilience, Break Secure 3XP Pro uses patented dimple key technology with controlled key duplication, helping maintain long-term access management. Compatibility with existing MTL™300 master key systems was also an important consideration for Leeds Lock Centre, allowing the product to be specified without disrupting established system designs. Nigel Taylor, Director and Head of Locksmiths at ASSA ABLOY UK & Ireland, commented: “Our relationship with Leeds Lock Centre is built on long-term collaboration and honest feedback. They assess products based on real experience, which is exactly the perspective we value. Their decision to adopt Break Secure 3XP Pro reflects the work that’s gone into developing a cylinder that meets current standards and anticipates how those standards and attack methods continue to evolve.” With more than 20 years of partnership behind them, Mul-T-Lock and Leeds Lock Centre continue to work closely as the security landscape changes, ensuring product development, specification and recommendation remain firmly rooted in tested performance and professional judgement.

With the introduction of the xNMS management software, barox Kommunikation is setting a new milestone in efficiency and transparency for video and security networks. The centralized platform simplifies the configuration, management, and maintenance of complex infrastructures and supports the entire lifecycle of a network—from planning through to ongoing operation. In complex security environments, the manual management of network components often reaches its limits. xNMS addresses this challenge with intelligent network discovery that automatically scans existing infrastructures for switches. The system transforms the physical network into a clear list view and a graphical topology. This visual representation provides complete transparency, not only simplifying day-to-day administration but also significantly accelerating troubleshooting in the event of network issues. Complex security environments A particular technological highlight is the integrated Diff Checker, which acts as a safeguard against unauthorized or accidental configuration changes. It monitors deviations between the stored target configuration and the live status in the field in real time. If changes occur, the system immediately highlights them, minimizing operational risks and ensuring that standards are consistently maintained. To keep on-site commissioning to a minimum, xNMS also enables comprehensive configuration management even before the actual hardware is delivered. Switches can be fully configured and verified virtually in advance. This simulation capability reveals dependencies and potential bottlenecks before the first component is even installed. The result is an almost "plug-and-play" commissioning process that accelerates rollouts and dramatically reduces error rates. Modern security solutions “Networks are now a critical success factor for modern security solutions. At the same time, they are becoming increasingly complex,” explains Jeneeben Jesujeevagan, Head of Technology at barox Kommunikation. “With xNMS, we help our customers manage this complexity and operate their infrastructure securely, transparently, and cost-effectively over the long term.” Planned software updates will expand the platform's functionality with firmware and backup management. The platform will centrally store multiple versions of switch configurations, enabling secure rollback to previous states at any time if required. To meet the varying requirements of different projects, xNMS will be available in two editions: A free version provides all essential core features for getting started with network management, while the paid version offers the full range of functionality for maximum control and automated processes in large-scale or highly critical infrastructures.

A security camera installed today has more AI processing power than the systems that guided early autonomous vehicle prototypes. And yet the operator who mounts that camera on a wall will, in all likelihood, never use most of that capability.  Industry surveys bear this out: a wide gap persists between the number of security professionals who believe AI can improve outcomes and the much smaller share who have adopted it operationally. The reason has nothing to do with the silicon and everything to do with how the industry has asked people to configure these systems. The problem is not that the industry lacks algorithms. The problem is that physical security has never found a scalable way to personalize systems for each site. The personalisation dilemma hiding in plain sight The problem is that physical security has never found a scalable way to personalize systems for each site A surveillance deployment at an airport, a retail chain, a school campus, and a logistics yard can look strikingly similar in hardware terms. Each installation uses image sensors, edge processors, network connectivity, and a management layer. What changes is what the operator cares about. At a school entrance, the priority might be perimeter approach after hours and controlled access during the day. At a loading dock, the concern is tailgating, vehicle dwell time, and safety incidents near forklifts. At an airport, the operator may need queue-flow analytics one moment, unattended-item detection the next, and then a search for a specific person of interest carrying a particular bag. At a retail store, loss prevention teams want to correlate customer flow patterns with point-of-sale data and identify suspicious behavior near high-value merchandise. This range of needs forces a reality that the industry has acknowledged in principle but never resolved in practice: the application pool across the market is vast, yet each individual site typically requires only a narrow set of outcomes. Each deployment needs personalisation once, at commissioning, and then again whenever the environment or the risk profile shifts. The app store that never became a market For the better part of a decade, the industry’s most visible answer to the personalisation problem was the “app store” model. The logic was straightforward: curate a marketplace of trained neural network algorithms, let integrators browse a catalog, and download the right analytic for each job. Queue counting for a passport control hall. License plate recognition for a parking structure. Occupancy monitoring for a conference room. The concept borrowed directly from the consumer smartphone approach. In practice, it never matched physical security’s purchasing and operating rhythm. A phone owner discovers and downloads new apps continuously. A physical security deployment selects one or two analytics functions at installation and rarely revisits them. Another maintenance burden A queue-counting algorithm trained on airport data is excellent at queue counting The economic incentive to maintain, curate, and update a broad catalog across a fragmented ecosystem of camera OEMs, VMS platforms, and system integrators never materialised when the average buyer drew from only a thin slice of it. And the question of who would operate such a marketplace across that fragmented landscape was never satisfactorily answered. The deeper issue is that distribution was not the hard part. Personalisation was. A queue-counting algorithm trained on airport data is excellent at queue counting. It does not naturally become a general-purpose security tool for whatever the operator needs next. Once a model is trained for a narrow task, adaptation requires another project, another integration cycle, and another maintenance burden. AI-enabled cameras The examples that do exist are instructive. Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands has used trained camera systems for over a decade to measure queue length at passport control and alert staff when additional counters should open. Rome trailed AI-enabled cameras to track pedestrian wait times at crosswalks, measure bus queue length, and monitor parking occupancy to support active transport and reduce vehicle emissions. These are effective, well-regarded deployments. They also illustrate the limitation: each required its own trained model, its own integration effort, and its own maintenance cycle. The queue-counting camera at Schiphol cannot be redeployed to detect an abandoned bag. That is a separate algorithm, a separate procurement, and a separate project. What changes with agentic AI Applied to physical security, this translates into a simpler commissioning experience Agentic AI points to a fundamentally different approach. An agentic system can receive goals expressed in natural language, determine the appropriate actions to fulfill those goals, execute those actions using available tools, and verify the results. Applied to physical security, this translates into a simpler commissioning experience: the operator expresses intent in plain language, and the system configures itself to achieve that intent. Consider the practical implications. An installer commissioning cameras at a retail location could type or speak a set of instructions: “Alert the manager if more than five people are waiting at checkout for longer than two minutes.” A facilities director could ask the system to “Track vehicles that enter the east parking lot after 9 p.m. and flag any that remain for more than 30 minutes.” A school security coordinator might specify: “Notify campus police if anyone approaches the perimeter fence between midnight and 5 a.m.” Appropriate perception capabilities None of these instructions require the operator to select a specific analytic from a catalog, configure a detection model, or define pixel-level zones in a complex VMS interface. The system interprets the intent, selects the appropriate perception capabilities, configures thresholds and context, and validates behavior over time. When the operator’s needs change, a new instruction replaces the old one. The camera hardware stays the same. The AI adapts. This is the core of the shift: minimal user input, maximum flexibility, and a security system that personalises itself without requiring the operator to navigate the traditional customize-certify-deploy cycle. Vision language models make it practical A conventional neural network trained for people counting can count people The enabling technology is the vision language model, or VLM. A VLM combines visual encoders with language reasoning, allowing it to interpret images or video in the context of natural language prompts. This is a qualitative leap beyond traditional convolutional neural networks, which classify or detect predefined objects and have no mechanism for open-ended interpretation. A conventional neural network trained for people counting can count people. It cannot distinguish between a crowd of commuters exiting a train station and a crowd assembling in protest. A VLM, by integrating contextual reasoning with visual analysis, can draw inferences that a task-specific model cannot. It can assess behavioral patterns, interpret spatial relationships, and respond to queries about scenes it has never been explicitly trained to analyze. Where a neural network might register two people carrying objects, a VLM could infer whether the scene suggests travellers with luggage or workers transporting equipment, provided the visual context supports that inference. Supporting multimodal input This matters in physical security because operational questions are rarely phrased as taxonomy labels. Operators want to express outcomes. They want to say “show me anything unusual near the loading bay after hours,” and the system should be able to reason about what “unusual” means given the site context. VLMs also support multimodal input. Audio cues such as a raised voice, a scream, an alarm, or breaking glass can contribute to scene interpretation when paired with video. In security applications, where events routinely unfold across both visual and auditory channels, this capability adds a meaningful layer of situational awareness. The edge constraint that forces discipline Large language models in the cloud use hundreds of billions of parameters and consume hundreds of watts None of this works if the architecture assumes data center conditions. Most surveillance cameras operate under strict power and thermal limits. Power over Ethernet (PoE), the standard delivery mechanism, typically provides between 15 and 30 watts depending on the PoE class, and only a fraction of that budget is available for AI processing after the sensor, ISP, video encoder, and network stack have taken their share. In many installations, the AI workload must fit within a few watts. Large language models in the cloud use hundreds of billions of parameters and consume hundreds of watts. That scale does not translate to a camera mounted on a pole or embedded in a ceiling tile. For agentic AI to work at the edge of a physical security network, the models must be compact, efficient, and designed for the purpose. Neural network acceleration This is where smaller, domain-specific VLMs become essential. Models trained on industry-relevant image and text datasets, combined with techniques such as pruning, quantisation, and parameter-efficient fine-tuning, can deliver meaningful visual reasoning within the compute and memory constraints of an edge processor. The result is a VLM that fits inside a camera’s power budget and still responds to natural language instructions with useful accuracy. Ambarella’s CVflow AI architecture, now in its third generation, was designed for this class of workload. The architecture integrates advanced neural network acceleration with high-resolution image signal processing and video encoding on a single system-on-chip, allowing cameras to run complex AI inference alongside their core imaging functions without exceeding the thermal and power boundaries that define edge deployments. The company's latest addition to its portfolio, the 4-nanometer CV7, runs CNNs and vision language models concurrently across multiple video streams while consuming 20 percent less power than its predecessor. For infrastructure and robotic applications requiring heavier models, the 5-nanometer N1 family supports multimodal LLMs in multi-camera configurations. Distributing intelligence across far edge, near edge, and cloud This tier must respond in milliseconds and operate within a fixed power envelope A workable agentic architecture for physical security distributes intelligence across three tiers, each matched to the processing demands and latency requirements of its role. At the far edge, inside the camera itself, the processor handles real-time perception: object detection, tracking, zone logic, and initial event classification. This tier must respond in milliseconds and operate within a fixed power envelope. At the near edge, on a local gateway or network video recorder, a more capable processor orchestrates across multiple cameras, maintains state, correlates events, retrieves site-specific policies and procedures, and classifies incidents requiring more context than any single camera provides. At the cloud/server tier, available when connectivity permits, the system accesses heavier models for forensic analysis, fleet-wide analytics, model updates, and long-horizon reporting. Periodic cloud access This tiered approach keeps the most time-sensitive decisions local, where latency is lowest and data privacy is strongest. It also means agentic capabilities can scale incrementally. A small installation might run entirely at the far edge with periodic cloud access. A large campus might employ all three tiers, with near-edge orchestration coordinating PTZ patrol patterns across dozens of cameras while the cloud generates shift summaries and updates models based on fleet-wide telemetry. In practice, a security workflow built on this pattern often combines real-time detection at the far edge, behavior-tree orchestration at the near edge for multi-camera coordination, local retrieval over site playbooks, and conservative safe-mode escalation when system confidence is low. The discipline of deterministic guardrails and structured verification loops is essential in security operations, where unpredictable system behavior is not acceptable. A hybrid future, with VLMs orchestrating specialist models The transition to agentic AI does not eliminate specialized neural networks The transition to agentic AI does not eliminate specialized neural networks. Purpose-trained models will continue to deliver superior accuracy for well-defined, high-frequency tasks such as license plate recognition, face matching, and fire and smoke detection. In a mature agentic system, the VLM acts as an orchestrator. It handles open-ended perception and natural language interaction while routing to specialized models when a task demands their precision. A PTZ camera at a transportation hub might receive the instruction “monitor the west concourse for unattended items.” The VLM interprets the request, manages the interface, and reasons over broader scene context. Real-time video processing When it identifies a candidate object, it routes to a dedicated abandoned-item classifier optimized for that specific validation step. The VLM orchestrates. The specialist model validates. The operator receives a refined, actionable alert. That hybrid pattern places specific demands on the silicon. The processor must support both traditional CNN inference and generative AI workloads simultaneously while maintaining real-time video processing within the same power envelope. The value of a tightly integrated SoC, one that combines an advanced ISP, a deep learning accelerator, and a video encoder on a single die, is that it eliminates the multi-chip complexity and power overhead that would otherwise make this approach impractical at the edge. Making agentic AI deployable for the ecosystem Ambarella’s Developer Zone, launched at CES 2026, provides a centralized portal of tools Physical security is built on a broad ecosystem of camera OEMs, VMS providers, independent software vendors, module builders, and system integrators. For agentic AI to reach the market at scale, these participants need model-ready tooling, reference workflows, and a practical path from prototype to production. This is where developer ecosystems become part of the story. Ambarella’s Developer Zone, launched at CES 2026, provides a centralized portal of tools, optimized AI models, agentic blueprints, low-code templates, and documentation aimed at accelerating edge AI application development on Ambarella’s SoCs. Common software stack ISVs and integrators can evaluate models, prototype applications, and deploy using a common software stack that spans the company’s CV7 and N1 SoC families through the Cooper development platform. That consistency across the product range reduces per-project engineering cost and accelerates time-to-market for partners building perception and analytics solutions. The point is broader than any single portal: agentic systems require components that have already been tested and optimized for edge deployment, so that integrators can focus on solving their customers' problems rather than rebuilding the AI pipeline from scratch. The ecosystem participants who lead the transition to agentic AI in physical security will be the ones with access to tooling that fits into their existing development and deployment processes. What comes next Physical security has searched for years for a scalable answer to personalisation Physical security has searched for years for a scalable answer to personalisation. The app store model did not provide it. Manual configuration, while functional on a per-site basis, scales poorly across large portfolios of cameras and changing operational requirements. Agentic AI offers a credible path forward because it aligns with how operators actually think. They express outcomes, not model specifications. They want systems that adapt to new requirements without repeated engineering cycles. Traditional neural networks With VLMs as the interface layer, smaller domain-specific models at the far edge, orchestration at the near edge, and disciplined verification loops throughout, personalisation can become a standard part of deployment rather than a custom project. The building blocks are now in place. Power-efficient edge AI processors can run VLMs and traditional neural networks simultaneously. Developer ecosystems are maturing to support rapid prototyping and deployment. Reference architectures for distributing intelligence across far-edge, near-edge, and cloud tiers are solidifying. For an industry that already installs vast numbers of AI-capable cameras each year, the opportunity is to make the intelligence already embedded in those endpoints genuinely usable for the people who rely on them every day.

The physical security industry has been in love with the cloud for quite some time. And understandably so. The promise of instant scalability, centralized access, and simplified maintenance is hard to ignore, especially in an era of remote work and distributed facilities. But reality is catching up to the hype. For many, especially those dealing with video surveillance at scale, the cloud is no longer the catch-all solution it once seemed. Rising costs, bandwidth limitations, and latency issues are exposing its shortcomings. And the more resolution increases, from HD to 4K and beyond, the heavier that burden becomes. Modern security cameras This is where edge computing, specifically AI-enabled edge processing available in modern security cameras, starts to look less like an option and more like a necessity. But it’s not just about adding intelligence to cameras. It’s about how that intelligence is deployed, scaled, and maintained. This leads us to containerization and tools such as Docker, which are a revolutionary piece of the puzzle. When cloud isn't enough Cloud analytics for video sounds great in theory: stream everything to the cloud Let’s start with a basic issue. Cloud analytics for video sounds great in theory: stream everything to the cloud, let powerful servers do the thinking, then serve up results to end-users in real time. However, in practice, this model can break down quickly for many end-users. Raw video is heavy. A single 4K camera streaming 24/7 can generate terabytes of data per month. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of cameras, and the bandwidth and storage costs become unsustainable. Then there’s latency. If AI needs to detect a person entering a restricted area or identify a license plate in motion, seconds count. Routing video to a cloud server for analysis and waiting for a response can introduce delays. Adding in concerns about uptime, such as what happens if the internet connection goes down, it becomes clear why relying exclusively on the cloud creates friction for mission-critical deployments. The edge advantage Edge processing turns that model on its head. Instead of sending everything out for analysis, edge-enabled cameras do the heavy lifting on-site. AI algorithms run directly on the device, interpreting what they see in real time. They generate metadata—lightweight descriptions of events, objects, or behaviors—rather than raw video. This metadata can be used to trigger alerts, inform decisions, or guide further review. The benefits are obvious: latency drops, bandwidth use plummets, and storage becomes more efficient. Edge processing solves many cloud deployment issues by keeping the compute where the data is generated, on the device. This frees the cloud up to do what it’s best at: providing scalable and centralized access to important footage. But where does the edge go from here? How do we evolve these powerful IoT devices to deliver even more situational awareness? Enter Docker: An app store for edge AI They package an app along with everything it needs to run: the code, settings, libraries, and tools This is where the concept of containerization and open development platforms like Docker comes in. Let’s start with an analogy that is helpful for understanding containers. Imagine you're getting ready for a trip. Rather than hoping your hotel has everything you need, you pack a suitcase with all your essentials: clothes, toiletries, chargers, maybe even snacks.  When you arrive at your destination, you open the suitcase and you’re ready to go. You don’t need to borrow anything or adjust to whatever the hotel has, since you’ve brought your own reliable setup. Containers in software work the same way. They package an app along with everything it needs to run: the code, settings, libraries, and tools. This means the application behaves exactly the same, whether it’s running on a developer’s laptop, on the edge in an IoT device, or in the cloud. Security camera with a powerful edge processor There’s no last-minute scrambling to make it compatible with the environment it lands in, because it’s self-contained, portable, and consistent. Just like a well-packed suitcase simplifies travel, containers simplify software deployment. They make applications faster to start, easier to manage, and more predictable, no matter where they’re used.  For a security camera with a powerful edge processor, it’s like giving the camera its own specialized toolkit that can be swapped out or upgraded without touching the rest of the system. It also means you can run multiple AI applications on a single camera, each in its own isolated environment. Integrators and end-users These applications don’t interfere with each other and can be updated independently Want to add fall detection to a healthcare facility’s camera network? Just deploy the analytics in a container. Need to monitor loading docks for pallet counts at a warehouse? Spin up a different container. These applications don’t interfere with each other and can be updated independently.  As a developer, if you use an open container platform like Docker, any system that supports Docker can utilize your software. This removes the need to do expensive custom work for each partner and ecosystem. This is one reason Docker containers are tried and true in the larger IT space and are just starting to get traction in the security sector. Docker also makes this scalable. Developers can build AI tools once and push them out to hundreds or thousands of devices. Integrators and end-users can customize deployments without being locked into proprietary ecosystems. And because containers isolate applications from core system functions, security risks are minimized. Metadata, not megabytes Traditional video analytics systems often require full video streams to be processed One of the most underappreciated aspects of this method is the way it redefines data flow. Traditional video analytics systems often require full video streams to be processed in centralized servers, either on-premises or in the cloud. This model is brittle and costly, and it’s also unnecessary. Most of the time, users aren’t interested in every frame. They’re looking for specific events. Edge AI enables cameras to generate metadata about what they see: “Vehicle detected at 4:02 PM,” “Person loitering at entrance,” “Package removed from shelf.” This metadata can be transmitted instantly with minimal bandwidth. Video can still be recorded locally or in the cloud, but only accessed when needed. This dramatically reduces network load and allows the cloud to be used more strategically: for remote access, long-term archiving, or large-scale data aggregation, without being overwhelmed by volume. Building smarter systems, together A single camera can run analytics from multiple third parties, all within a secure, containerized framework An equally important aspect of containerization is how it opens up the ecosystem. Traditional security systems are often built as closed solutions. Everything—from the cameras to the software to the analytics—comes from a single vendor. While this simplifies procurement, it limits innovation and flexibility. Docker flips that model. Because it’s an open, well-established standard, developers from any background can create applications for edge devices. Integrators can mix and match tools to meet unique customer needs. A single camera can run analytics from multiple third parties, all within a secure, containerized framework. This is a profound shift. Security cameras stop being fixed-function appliances and become software-defined platforms. And like any good platform, their value increases with the range of tools available. Hybrid: The realistic future So, where does this leave the cloud? It is still essential, but in a more specialized role. The most robust, future-proof architectures will be hybrid: edge-first and cloud-supported. Real-time detection and decision-making happen locally, where speed and uptime matter most. The cloud handles oversight, coordination, and data warehousing. Real-time detection and decision-making happen locally, where speed and uptime matter most This hybrid model is especially useful for organizations with complex deployments. A manufacturing plant might retain video locally for 30 days but push older footage to the cloud to meet retention requirements. A retail chain might analyze customer flow on-site but aggregate trend data in the cloud for HQ-level insight. Hybrid gives organizations the flexibility to optimize cost, compliance, and performance. Regulatory realities It’s also worth noting that not every organization can, or should, store data in the cloud. Privacy regulations like GDPR in Europe or similar laws elsewhere require strict control over where data is stored. In many cases, sensitive footage must remain in-country. Edge and hybrid models can make compliance easier by minimizing unnecessary data movement. Conclusion: Smart security starts at the edge The next wave of innovation in physical security won’t come from bigger cloud servers or faster internet connections. It will come from smarter edge devices, with cameras and sensors that don’t just record, but understand and classify events. And the foundation for that intelligence isn’t just AI, but how that AI is deployed. Containerization via platforms like Docker is unlocking new levels of flexibility, security, and scalability for the physical security industry. By embracing open standards, supporting modular applications, and rethinking how data flows through the system, physical security professionals can build solutions that are not only more effective but also more sustainable, secure, and adaptable. The cloud still has its place. But the edge is essential to the future for real-time intelligence, mission-critical uptime, and cost-effective deployment.

Retailers now often find themself in a precarious situation. Profit margins are being squeezed by widespread shoplifting: The Council on Criminal Justice reports that between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, shoplifting reports increased by 24%. Meanwhile, the strategies used by shops to deal with this situation are alienating consumers and affecting total sales. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, stated during an earnings call that customers are now purchasing more pharmaceuticals from Amazon in response to other retailers locking their cabinets. Media reports This crisis impacts not only the large chains—more than 7,100 retail stores were closed in the U.S. in 2024, a 69% increase from the previous year—but also small, local businesses, whose profit margins are even narrower.  Media reports out of Los Angeles show that small businesses in regions with greater shoplifting rates are more likely to close, and small business owners' job satisfaction and general well-being are negatively impacted by the fear of crime. How to safeguard staff and inventory Unchecked retail theft demoralizes staff and makes the store less attractive to customers This is obviously not a sustainable situation. In addition to lowering revenue, unchecked retail theft demoralizes staff and makes the store less attractive to customers.  Unfortunately, making customers wait in line to enter a store or locking up toothpaste and deodorant only makes the customer relationship worse. Retailers need to figure out how to safeguard staff and inventory without alienating their customer base—and they need to figure it out fast. Advanced video security A new tool has come to the forefront of this fight: advanced video security. Of course, video surveillance has been used in stores for many years. However, the technology currently being used to reduce retail theft is very different from the outdated analog video systems of the past. With features like cloud-based flexibility and AI-enhanced analytics, this new generation of video surveillance systems has all the advantages of modern technological advancements, while also providing businesses with a competitive edge in the fight against retail theft. Security's new AI video standard Workers are constantly rushing from aisle to aisle in an effort to satisfy eager consumers Although the typical chain pharmacy may appear straightforward to the customer, retailers are aware of how intricate these spaces are. Hundreds or even thousands of shoppers may come and go on any given day, with a larger volume during busy seasons like holidays or special promotional events.  It's common for shoppers to pick up merchandise and put it down in another part of the store, often far away from its original location. Meanwhile, workers are constantly rushing from aisle to aisle in an effort to satisfy eager consumers, particularly during these busy seasons. How much can recorded videos reveal in a busy Using traditional CCTV, managers and security teams can monitor some of this activity, but their viewpoint of events will always be incomplete.  There is a limit to how much recorded videos can reveal in busy, fast-paced customer situations, and even the largest chain stores lack the staff and resources to continuously sort and evaluate all of the data they collect. When more customers are in the store for a special event, there’s also naturally a higher risk of theft. New generation of video security Using machine learning algorithms trained on large amounts of retail-specific data The new generation of video security aims to provide retailers with comprehensive intelligence that covers all aspects of their operations.  Using machine learning algorithms trained on large amounts of retail-specific data, they are focused on predictive actions and can recognize problematic behavior in real time from raw video footage. AI-powered surveillance For example, if someone entered a store with empty bags but bypassed the cashier and started heading to the exit with a full bag, AI could predict a potential theft before it happens. Instead of just recording the theft, security action could be triggered in the moment. AI-powered surveillance is like an all-seeing security officer, quickly analyzing the thousands of variables at play and spotting the warning signs of a possible crime before it happens. This is especially crucial during the holidays and busy shopping periods. Security personnel required to monitor cameras Imagine a chain store with 500 locations and 32 cameras each: that’s 1,600 cameras Cameras with AI can also alert human security personnel of events that would have otherwise been missed. Imagine a chain store with 500 locations and 32 cameras each: that’s 1,600 cameras. Now just imagine the number of security personnel required to monitor all of those cameras – when it comes down to it, traditional security is a numbers game. AI is the differentiator here that will allow retailers to win this game. VSaaS: A new tool to Deter Theft The emergence of Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS), a surprisingly under-discussed aspect of the broader SaaS revolution, is an important part of video security’s evolution. VSaaS solutions are especially helpful for chains that require a high level of centralization and coordination across hundreds or even thousands of locations. In addition to offering action alerts at the shop level, VSaaS offers comprehensive security systems accessible from any location. This gives corporate headquarters access to complete, aggregated insights on all aspects of business operations. Identify the best ways to deploy staff Retail operators are constantly in a state of triage, rushing to identify the best ways to deploy staff This is significant in part because of the importance that social engineering and store layout have in preventing theft. Stores are frequently more busy during specific hours than others, and consumers may congregate in particular areas of the store while others are comparatively empty.  Retail operators are constantly in a state of triage, rushing to identify the best ways to deploy staff and organize inventory while accounting for all of these variables. Cloud-based VSaaS solutions Cloud-based VSaaS solutions help streamline this process by eliminating uncertainty, highlighting blind spots and bottlenecks, and informing retailers of what truly works.  Another regrettable reality is that employees frequently steal from businesses they work at.  Here, too, VSaaS solutions—when combined with sophisticated, integrated access controls—are essential. AI analytics technology Implementation and deployment of VSaaS is also easier and less costly than CCTV Implementation and deployment of VSaaS is also easier and less costly than CCTV. When new AI analytic updates become available, the client software and hardware don’t need to be upgraded, and the onsite technology and cameras also don’t need to be replaced. The AI analytics technology is upgraded in the cloud, enabling faster deployment and implementation of new technology. New VSaaS solutions Theft will always occur at some level; it's just a part of doing business. However, the growth in shoplifting that retailers have experienced in recent years is unacceptable, and if these figures keep rising, the consequences will be disastrous. In a time of dire need for retail, new VSaaS solutions have come to the forefront and are already turning the tide.

The security landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, as evidenced by the innovations showcased at the ISC West Expo 2026. From dismantling of silos between physical and digital security to the ongoing transition to cloud and hybrid platforms, much of the discussion on the show floor was familiar, if somehow more urgent than ever. Clearly the industry is moving toward unified, cloud-native, and highly automated ecosystems. In a series of deep-dive meetings and demonstrations at the recent show, I got a first-hand glimpse of the future of the physical security marketplace. Spoiler alert: The future is now! HID Global: Tearing down the silos HID Global is addressing the long-requested convergence of physical and digital security. Recognizing that the industry has historically operated in silos, HID is now leading with a combined implementation team to leverage the power of both sides. HID is supporting the transition by combining its logical and physical security teams to help end users design secure, end-to-end journeys for their employees. By leveraging its massive existing footprint in physical access, HID is uniquely positioned to help organizations upgrade their cybersecurity posture without a total "rip and replace" of their hardware. HID is seeing a surge in demand for converged credentials that unite building access with digital identity. On the digital front, HID has implemented FIDO (Fast Identity Online) and passkeys to replace traditional passwords with more secure, biometric-backed authentication methods. Acre Security: Bridging the gap to the cloud Acre Security previewed a cloud-native video solution, reinforcing its cloud-first security strategyAcre Security is currently consolidating brands, bringing established names like Feenics and AccessIt under a single corporate umbrella. A primary theme for the company at ISC West is the migration of legacy systems to modern infrastructure. To facilitate the transition, they are launching "The Bridge," a technology designed to help on-premise customers transition to the cloud at a pace that suits their operational needs. The company is also expanding its portfolio into video. Attendees at the show received a preview of a new cloud-native video solution slated for release later this year, signaling Acre’s commitment to a holistic, cloud-first security suite. Acoem: Real-time acoustic threat detection With a 35-year foundation in vibration and acoustics—including military sniper detection—Acoem is providing gunshot detection through edge processing. Unlike systems that rely on the cloud and may suffer from latency, Acoem’s technology processes data at the sensor level for instant alerts. Their sensors are engineered for massive outdoor spaces, covering a 500-foot radius (roughly 11 football fields) and can detect high-powered rifle shots from up to half a mile away. The system provides critical intelligence by distinguishing between muzzle blasts and "mach noise" from bullet travel, delivering an audio file to the end-user that maps the location and direction of the threat. They use AI to filter out environmental false positives, such as skateboards hitting metal rails. Alarm.com: The all-in-one dealer ecosystem Beyond hardware, Alarm.com is leveraging AI to streamline the sales process Alarm.com is doubling down on "giving tools to dealers to help them be successful," with a focus on unified commercial solutions. A highlight at ISC West is their new fire communicator, which integrates fire monitoring into their single app, completing what they call the "fourth leg of the stool." The product allows fire systems to benefit from the same real-time customer engagement and push notifications that have long been available for intrusion and video. The key products, such as commercial-grade hardware, are now available for immediate purchase. Beyond hardware, Alarm.com is leveraging AI to streamline the sales process. Their new AI Proposal Builder uses customer meeting notes to automatically generate customized, value-driven sales proposals for dealers. Allegion: A global shift in credentialing Following the acquisition of ELATEC, Allegion is adopting a more global market approach and expanding its OEM business. The company is involved in the development of Aliro, the newly unveiled mobile credentialing standard. Allegion’s strategy is built on versatility: While Aliro serves the burgeoning mobile market, they also offer PKOC for plastic cards, allowing them to provide solutions regardless of the user's preferred credential type. The ELATEC acquisition has effectively filled previous gaps in their use-case portfolio, positioning them as a comprehensive provider for both physical and digital access needs. AtlasIED: Engineering for life safety Transitioning from audio to a fully automated threat detection company, AtlasIED showcased its new IPX line at ISC West. This modular platform uses a single PoE++ port to power various "plug-and-play" modules, allowing for easy system upgrades. Their gun detection technology achieves a 99% confidence rating by "stacking" AI models; it cross-references audio data with infrared signatures to detect muzzle flashes and air quality sensors for particulates. With systems already running in 80% of U.S. international airports, the company maintains 24/7 domestic engineering support to manage these "life-safety adjacent" environments. Axis Communications: Unifying connectivity Axis Communications is advancing network video with 4G/5G surveillance, reducing cabling needs Axis Communications continues to lead in network video, with a new focus on offering surveillance through 4G and 5G networks to eliminate the need for extensive cabling in long-range applications. Axis also introduced several specialized hardware pieces, including the P1486-LE global shutter camera for high-speed traffic monitoring and the Q2802-TE, which integrates thermal and visual monitoring into a single unit.  To assist technicians, they launched a new installer app that uses Bluetooth for easier camera pairing and management directly from a mobile device. Axon: De-escalation through enterprise wearables Focusing on frontline safety, Axon is expanding from law enforcement into the enterprise sector with its retail and healthcare-focused body camera. Weighing only 0.25 lb, these cameras are designed to be less intimidating, using colorful designs and acting as a primary de-escalator for aggressive behavior. A clear front display signals when recording is active, striking a balance between safety and a non-intimidating appearance. These devices feature live-streaming and panic alarms that connect workers to a Global Security Operations Center (GSOC). To ensure the footage is legally viable, Axon maintains a rigorous audit trail that authenticates every action recorded. Genetec: The value of the unified platform Genetec is advocating for unified platforms that reduce the time between incident detection and resolution. They argue that AI is becoming a commodity and that the true value lies in unified platforms that reduce the time from incident to resolution. Their approach emphasises the "outcomes" customers need, such as allowing security teams to coalesce around an investigation quickly. Genetec remains a strong supporter of open systems for enterprise customers, ensuring they have the choice to integrate diverse technologies rather than being locked into a manufacturer’s “walled garden.” This flexibility is critical for high-end security environments that require tailored, responsive systems. Johnson Controls: Large-scale enterprise solutions Johnson Controls has made a significant push into the enterprise video market with C-Cure IQ, a standalone VMS designed for major hubs like airports and large campuses. Through a partnership with Scylla, they have integrated 11 advanced analytics—including facial recognition and weapons detection—directly into their cameras. They also showcased new multi-sensor panoramic cameras capable of "stitching" multiple images into a single 360-degree view. While innovating in video, Johnson Controls also confirmed modern upgrades to their intrusion line, including their legacy DSC Neo line. The new DSC PowerSeries Neo 5, a high-end residential and commercial platform, features an all-new user interface and built-in PowerG+. They have also begun shipping the IQ5 family lineup, which is powered by a Qualcomm DragonWing processor.  ONVIF: Standardising the future of AI and cloud ONVIF continues to lead the charge in establishing common languages for the security industry. A major focus is their new "Cloud Profile," which enables cameras to connect directly to the cloud through a standardized protocol. They are also expanding into audio standards to ensure IP-based speakers can seamlessly connect to Video Management Systems (VMS). To combat the rise of sophisticated digital manipulation, ONVIF is developing "video signing" standards. ONVIF is actively seeking more diverse enterprise participation to help shape these emerging AI standardsThis feature protects the integrity of video for evidentiary purposes by embedding a digital signature and timestamp directly into the footage at the camera level. Additionally, the organization has formed an AI Working Group to develop common communication methods for "AI agents" within physical security systems. ONVIF is actively seeking more diverse enterprise participation to help shape these emerging AI standards. Roberto Licari is the new ONVIF Ambassador, seeking to attract new companies (even outside the security sector) to ONVIF as they look to expand their offerings. SwiftConnect: Bridging digital and physical identity SwiftConnect is redefining access control by shifting the focus from physical cards to digital identity. As a cloud-based "connected access network," the platform bridges the gap between IT identity providers (like Okta or Azure AD) and legacy physical access control systems. At the show's Security Experience Center demonstrations, SwiftConnect showcased its ability to integrate mobile credentials within Apple and Google Wallets across multiple technology platforms. By aligning physical security with Zero Trust principles, they ensure that access is governed by the same rigorous standards as digital networks. Their software-centric approach allows for a more seamless employee experience while simplifying the management of complex, multi-site building security. This emphasises a future where the mobile device becomes the primary tool for navigating the physical workspace. Wasabi Technologies: Redefining cloud storage economics With cloud technology becoming a baseline requirement at every booth, Wasabi Technologies highlighted its "hot cloud storage" as a cost-effective alternative to major hyperscalers. Their model claims to be 80% less expensive than competitors, notably removing hidden fees. Wasabi is increasingly bundled at the "back end" of security solutions through partnerships with integrators and end users. A key feature for law enforcement and high-security sectors is their "Object Lock" capability, which ensures that video evidence remains untampered with and immutable during defined retention periods. By providing high-performance storage without the unpredictable costs typically associated with the cloud, Wasabi is positioning itself as the foundational layer for data-heavy video surveillance applications that require long-term, secure retention. Wasabi is positioning itself as the foundational layer for data-heavy video surveillance applications ZKTeco USA: Versatile and integrated access ZKTeco USA showcased a range of integrated solutions, including turnstiles, visitor management, and access control. Their Atlas access control series offers versatility, supporting everything from traditional readers and keypads to QR codes and fingerprint scanning, with the flexibility to operate on-premise or in the cloud. For tight environments, they introduced the Mars 100 turnstile, which features a compact 2x3-foot footprint. They also highlighted the Omni series, an all-in-one standalone reader-controller that manages access, intercom, and visitor functions in a single device. Innovation in portability was evident in their new walk-through metal detectors, which consist of two poles with an 8-hour battery life—ideal for schools and temporary events. While they offer their own Armatura readers, ZKTeco emphasized that their solutions can integrate with other industry leaders to fit diverse customer needs.

2025 was another impactful year for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the security industry, which is undergoing an enormous transformation as global pioneers prioritise specialized technology to drive future growth.  The year 2025 has been defined by massive corporate reorganisations, most notably Honeywell and Resideo spinning off core divisions to unlock shareholder value. Simultaneously, an aggressive wave of mergers and acquisitions is reshaping the landscape, with giants like ASSA ABLOY and Motorola Solutions absorbing innovators in AI-driven surveillance, cloud-native access control, and identity management. From residential security shifts to critical infrastructure enhancements, this article will summarise how these strategic moves signal a decisive industry pivot toward integrated and intelligent security ecosystems. Resideo to spin off ADI business Resideo Technologies, Inc. announced its intention to separate its ADI Global Distribution business from its Products & Solutions (P&S) business via a tax-free spin-off to shareholders. The separation is expected to be completed in the second half of 2026. P&S will continue as Resideo, a building products manufacturer of residential controls The goal is to unlock value, enhance operational performance, and improve strategic flexibility for both entities. After the separation, P&S will continue as Resideo, a building products manufacturer of residential controls and sensing solutions. ADI will become an independent public company and remain a global wholesale distributor of low-voltage products, including security and audio-visual solutions. Honeywell separates into three companies There are big changes pending at Honeywell, another global security industry company. Honeywell announced plans to separate its Automation and Aerospace businesses into two independent, publicly traded companies following a comprehensive portfolio evaluation. Combined with the previously announced spin-off of Advanced Materials, this strategy will create three distinct industry pioneers. The Automation and Aerospace separation is targeted for completion in the second half of 2026 as a tax-free transaction for shareholders. The largest portion of Honeywell’s traditional security business (cameras, access control, and fire safety) sits within the Building Automation segment of the new Honeywell Automation company. This unit includes products from recent major acquisitions, such as LenelS2. SimpliSafe’s new chapter SimpliSafe has agreed to be acquired by private equity firm GTCR from Hellman & Friedman SimpliSafe has agreed to be acquired by private equity firm GTCR from Hellman & Friedman, another private equity firm. As the third largest U.S. residential security provider, SimpliSafe will continue under the leadership of the current CEO, while its founders remain significant investors.  GTCR, an experienced security industry investor, intends to support the company’s expansion and continued innovation in AI-powered, DIY home protection. This marks a new chapter in SimpliSafe’s mission to provide professional monitoring without long-term contracts. SimpliSafe is GTCR’s fifth investment in the security alarm industry, including prior investments in residential-focused security companies SecurityLink and Protection1, along with commercial-focused security companies HSM and Everon. Motorola grows technology portfolio Motorola Solutions grew its portfolio through acquisitions in 2025. The industry giant strategically expanded its safety and security ecosystem through the acquisition of four specialized technology firms. The company acquired Blue Eye to integrate AI-driven remote video monitoring and 24/7 security operations into its threat detection workflows. To support frontline workers, Motorola added Theatro’s voice-powered communication platform, which complements existing mobile and video technologies. Motorola further bolster its public safety capabilities with the acquisition of RapidDeploy, a cloud-native Next Generation 911 provider that offers real-time caller mapping and data analytics to accelerate emergency responses. Motorola also agreed to acquire InVisit to enhance its Avigilon Alta suite with cloud-based visitor management, streamlining guest registration and blocklist screening for enterprise security. These acquisitions aim to unify detection, communication, and response across various sectors, including retail, healthcare, and critical infrastructure. Allied sells majority stake in AMAG Allied Universal sold a majority stake in AMAG Technology to Shore Rock Partners In December, Allied Universal sold a majority stake in AMAG Technology to Shore Rock Partners. Shore Rock is a growth investor focused on critical infrastructure, with strategic backing from BellTower Partners. Allied Universal will retain a significant minority share. The sale is intended to allow 54-year-old AMAG, which provides integrated access control, identity, guest, and video management solutions, to operate independently from Allied Universal's services-based model for long-term growth. Shore Rock's plan is to invest in advancing AMAG's product line and customer relationships. With this transaction, David Sullivan, AMAG's President, will become CEO. Everon acquires ADT multifamily segment Commercial security provider Everon announced in September that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the business-to-business (B2B) multifamily segment from ADT. This acquisition is a strategic extension that expands Everon's reach in the valuable multifamily market. It will allow the company to offer a more comprehensive portfolio of tailored solutions, including access control, video surveillance, and self-guided tour capabilities. Everon's CEO states that the deal enables them to help property owners and managers increase net operating income and improve operational efficiency. Dormakaba acquires TANlock and Avant-Garde Dormakaba, a global provider of access solutions, acquired TANlock GmbH in July Dormakaba, a global provider of access solutions, acquired TANlock GmbH in July. TANlock is a German firm specializing in innovative high-security access solutions for data centers and other critical infrastructure. The acquisition strengthens Dormakaba’s presence in the data center market.  TANlock's intelligent system provides enhanced server cabinet security using electromechanical rack locks and various authentication modules. This solution is scalable, future-proof, and can be integrated into existing IT infrastructures for both retrofits and new installations. Dormakaba also agreed to acquire Indiana-based Avant-Garde Systems Inc. to strengthen its North American entrance control portfolio. This move bolsters Dormakaba’s presence in high-growth sectors like airports and data centers. Acre acquires REKS for AI Recent M&A activity also reflects the growing importance of artificial intelligence. For example, Acre Security acquired REKS, a purpose-built generative AI solution designed to transform access control, allowing professionals to use natural language queries for instant data insights. Integrated into Acre’s cloud-native ecosystem, this AI-powered platform prioritises data privacy while streamlining operations. Led by a new AI Development Team, Acre plans to expand these capabilities into intrusion detection and visitor management. Two acquisitions for Allegion Global security provider Allegion, through one of its subsidiaries, completed the acquisition of ELATEC Global security provider Allegion, through one of its subsidiaries, completed the acquisition of ELATEC, a manufacturer of security and access technology, specializing in RFID credentials and readers solutions designed in Germany and sold globally.  ELATEC’s portfolio of readers leverages their internally developed software stack and ensures compatibility with nearly 100 credential types, making the company a pioneer in interoperability, which aligns well with Allegion’s partner-of-choice strategy. Allegion, also through one of its subsidiaries, acquired Brisant Secure Limited, a security hardware provider in the United Kingdom. Senstar acquires Blickfeld for LiDAR sensors Senstar Technologies Corporation has agreed to acquire Blickfeld, a specialist in 3D LiDAR sensors and software. Expected to close in Q1 2026, the acquisition integrates Blickfeld’s hardware into Senstar’s advanced security ecosystem. This strategic move expands Senstar’s addressable market into volume monitoring and traffic applications while enhancing its AI-powered situational awareness capabilities. Following the transaction, Blickfeld will operate largely independently as a subsidiary. ASSA ABLOY continues acquisition spree Global giant ASSA ABLOY was probably the most active company in the M&A market in 2025 Global giant ASSA ABLOY was probably the most active company in the M&A market in 2025, demonstrating aggressive market growth, strategically reinforcing its core business, and expanding its technological footprint across the global security marketplace. The acquisitions delivered on the company's strategy to strengthen its position in mature markets by integrating complementary products and solutions. A major theme for ASSA ABLOY was the enhancement of the door and perimeter security portfolio, particularly in the Americas. This effort included acquiring US-based Metal Products Inc. (MPI) for custom-made hollow metal doors and frames and International Door Products (IDP) for fire-rated steel door frames, both in the fall. Earlier in the year, ASSA ABLOY gained a stronger presence in Central Canada with the addition of Wallace & Wallace and Wallace Perimeter Security, a manufacturer, distributor, and installer of perimeter fencing, door, and gate solutions. The Entrance Systems Division also saw expansion with the acquisition of Belgium’s Kingspan Door Components, a manufacturer of sectional door panels. Furthermore, Door System, a Danish manufacturer of high-quality fire-rated doors, was signed for acquisition in the spring. Cloud-based platform ASSA ABLOY also made significant moves in electronic and access control solutions. Early 2025 saw two key acquisitions: Uhlmann & Zacher, a German supplier of access control handles and knobs, and InVue, a US-based provider of connected asset protection and access control solutions. Reinforcing this segment, SiteOwl, a pioneering cloud-based platform for physical security lifecycle management, was acquired in the summer. The spring acquisition of Pedestal PRO, a US manufacturer of access control pedestals and mounting solutions, further strengthens the electromechanical offerings in the Americas. ASSA ABLOY bolstered its capabilities in remote care technology with Germany’s TeleAlarm Group in late spring. HID Global expands in 2025 HID Global, a subsidiary of ASSA ABLOY, was also active on the M&A front in 2025 HID Global, a subsidiary of ASSA ABLOY, was also active on the M&A front in 2025, aggressively driving the convergence of physical and digital identity solutions and signaling a clear roadmap for security professionals. HID's move to purchase Vancouver-based IDmelon, announced in the autumn of 2025, targets the critical need for robust logical access control. IDmelon’s proprietary software platform transforms everyday identifiers, including existing physical credentials, smartphones, or biometrics, directly into enterprise-level FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) security keys. This approach streamlines an organization’s transition to phishing-resistant, passwordless multi-factor authentication (MFA) and minimizes the need for disruptive changes by integrating physical and digital access into a single, cohesive solution. Safer patient experience Separate from its focus on digital access, HID also bolstered its Identification Technologies Business Area by acquiring the Calmell Group. Calmell is a long-established manufacturer specializing in smart cards, smart paper, and magnetic tickets for the public transportation sector. This addition is expected to expand HID’s footprint and relevance in global public transportation ecosystems, allowing the Barcelona-headquartered firm to leverage HID’s core expertise in digital credentials to drive future-proof solutions for seamless mobility. Also, HID acquired Intelligent Observation to expand its Healthcare Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) portfolio. Intelligent Observation provides a platform to reduce hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) by tracking hand hygiene compliance. The system uses wearable Near-Field Magnetic Induction (NFMI) devices and a cloud-based SaaS dashboard. This technology records and reports if healthcare workers sanitize appropriately, providing granular compliance data to administrators to enable a safer patient experience.

Anyone who has been in a proverbial cave for the last couple of years faced a language barrier at this year’s ISC West 2025 trade show. The industry’s latest wave of innovation has brought with it a new bounty of jargon and buzzwords, some of which I heard at ISC West for the first time. As a public service, we are happy to provide the following partial glossary to promote better understanding of the newer terms. (Some are new to the security industry but have been around in the IT world for years.) Obviously, if we can’t understand the meaning of the industry’s lexicon (and agree on the meaning of terms!), we will struggle to embrace the full benefits of the latest industry innovation. Not to mention we will struggle to communicate. Generative AI Generative AI can identify an object in an image based on its understanding of previous objects This was perhaps the most common new(ish) term I heard bouncing around at ISC West. While the term artificial intelligence (AI) now rolls off everyone’s tongue, the generative “version” of the term is catching up. Generative AI uses what it has learned to create something new. The name comes from the core function of this type of artificial intelligence: it can generate (or create) new content. It doesn’t just copy and paste; it understands the underlying patterns and creates something original based on that understanding. In the case of video, for example, generative AI can identify an object in an image based on its understanding of previous objects it has seen. Video and security Generative AI can tell you something digitally about what is happening in an environment. There is no longer a need to write “rules;” the system can take in data, contextualize it, and understand it, even if it does not exactly match something it has seen before. In the case of video and security, generative AI offers more flexibility and better understanding. From 2014 to 2024, the emphasis was on detecting and classifying things; today AI is expanding to allow new ways to handle data, not so prescriptive and no more rules engines. Agentic AI Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can operate autonomously to achieve specific goals Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can operate autonomously to achieve specific goals, with minimal to no direct human intervention. In addition to the capabilities of generative AI, agentic AI can take action based on what it detects and understands. Use of agentic AI typically revolves around an if/then scenario. That is, if action A occurs, then the system should proceed with action B. For example, if an AI system “sees” a fire, then it will shut down that part of the building automatically without a human having to initiate the shutdown. There is a lot of discussion in the industry about the need to keep humans involved in the decision-making loop, so use of truly autonomous systems will likely be limited in the foreseeable future. However, the ability of agentic AI to act on critical information in a timely manner, in effect to serve as an “agent” in place of a human decision-maker, will find its place in physical security as we move forward. Inference Inference is another common term related to AI. It refers to the process by which an AI model uses the knowledge it gained during its training phase to make predictions, classifications, or generate outputs on new, unseen data. The direct relationship of this term to physical security and video is obvious. In the simplest terms, an AI system is “trained” by learning patterns, relationships, and features from a large dataset. During inference, the trained model is presented with new questions (data it hasn't seen before), and it applies what it learned during training to provide answers or make decisions. Simply put, inference is what makes AI systems intelligent. Containerization Dividing a massive security management system into several separate containers enables management of the various parts In IT, containerization is a form of operating system-level virtualization that allows you to package an application and all its dependencies (libraries, binaries, configuration files) into a single, portable image called a container. This container can then be run consistently across any infrastructure that supports containerization, such as a developer's laptop, a testing environment, or a server in the cloud. In the physical security industry, you hear “containerization” used in the context of separating out the various components of a larger system. Dividing a massive security management system into several independent containers enables the various parts to be managed, updated, and enhanced without impacting the larger whole. Genetec’s SecurityCenter cloud platform Think of it like shipping containers in the real world. Each container holds everything an application needs to run, isolated from other applications and from the underlying system. This ensures that the application will work the same way regardless of the environment it is deployed in.   “It took us five years to containerize Genetec’s SecurityCenter cloud platform, but containerization now simplifies delivering updates to products whenever we want,” says Andrew Elvish, Genetec’s VP Marketing. Among other benefits, containerization enables Genetec to provide more frequent updates--every 12 days. Headless appliance Headless appliance is a device that is managed and controlled remotely through a network or web interface A headless appliance is a device that is managed and controlled remotely through a network or web interface. The device is like a “body without a head” in the traditional sense of computer interaction: It performs its intended function, but without any visual output or input device for local interaction. In physical security, such devices are increasingly part of cloud-based systems in which the centralized software manages and operates all the disparate “headless” devices. A headless appliance does not have a Windows management system. “The whole thing is managed through the as-a-service cloud system,” says Elvish. With a headless device, you just plug it into the network, and it is managed by your system. You manage the Linux-based device remotely, so configuring and deploying it is easy. Democratizing AI You hear the term democratizing AI used by camera manufacturers who are looking to expand AI capabilities throughout their camera lines, including value-priced models. For example, even i-PRO’s value-priced cameras (U series) now have AI – fulfilling their promise to democratize AI. Another approach is to connect non-AI-equipped cameras to the network by way of an AI-equipped camera, a process known as “AI-relay.” For instance, i-PRO can incorporate non-AI cameras into a system by routing/connecting them through an X-series camera to provide AI functionality. Bosch is also embracing AI throughout its video camera line and enabling customers to choose application-specific analytics for each use case, in effect, tailoring each camera to the application, and providing AI to everyone. Context Cloud system also enables users to ask open-ended queries that involve context, in addition to detection Context refers to an AI system that can understand the “why” of a situation. For example, if someone stops in an area and triggers a video “loitering” analytic, the event might trigger an alarm involving an operator. However, if an AI system can provide “context” (e.g., he stopped to tie his shoe), then the event can be easily dismissed by the automated system without involving an operator. Bosch’s IVA-Pro Context product is a service-based model that adds context to edge detection. The cloud system also enables users to ask open-ended questions that involve context in addition to detection. For example, rather than asking "do you see a gas can?" you can ask "do you see any safety hazards in this scene?" The pre-trained model understands most common objects, and understands correlations, such as "a gas can could be a safety hazard.” A scaled-down on-premise version of the IVA Context product will be available in 2026. Bosch showed a prototype at ISC West. Most video data is never viewed by an operator. Context allows a system to look at all the video with "almost human eyes." Cameras are essentially watching themselves, and understanding why something happened and what we can do. All that previously unwatched video is now being watched by the system itself, boosted by the ability to add “context” to the system. Any meaningful information based on context can trigger a response by an operator. Data lake A data lake is a centralized repository that allows one to store vast amounts of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data in its native format. In the case of the physical security marketplace, a data lake includes data generated by systems outside the physical security infrastructure, from inventory and logistics systems, for example. A data lake is where an enterprise can accumulate all their data, from the weather to Point-of-Sale information to logistics, to whatever they can gather. Putting the data in one place (a “data lake”) enables them to mine that data and parse it in different ways using AI to provide information and insights into their business. Notably, a data lake contains all a company’s data, not just security or video data, which opens up new opportunities to leverage the value of data beyond security and safety applications. Crunching the various information in a data lake, therefore, security technology can be used to maximize business operations.

Stadiums and arenas are no longer places that come to life only on an event day. Increasingly, they are becoming year-round hubs for concerts, conferences, hospitality, retail, and community activity. The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is one such example of a venue generating additional revenue and audiences beyond football matches, with its 2025 commercial income rising from £255.2 million to £277.1 million, due to hosting four National Football League (NFL) franchises, high-profile boxing events, and a Beyoncé summer concert series. Positive visitor experience Yet, as these venues grow more complex and multifaceted, so does the challenge of keeping visitors and staff safe throughout the year. Security is no longer simply about responding to incidents.; Instead, it has become a strategic function that enables stadium leadership to tailor security to different event types and risk levels, keep on top of health and safety and maintenance, and add value to marketing, sales, operations, and more. More pointedly, venue operators will soon have to comply with the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, better known as Martyn's Law, which received Royal Assent in April 2025 and is expected to come into force in spring 2027. With less than a year before implementation is anticipated, organizations responsible for large publicly accessible venues are increasingly assessing how they can strengthen preparedness while maintaining a positive visitor experience. Wider readiness strategy Named in memory of Martyn Hett, a victim of the Manchester Arena attack in 2017, the legislation introduces new responsibilities for venue operators to consider the risk of terrorism and put appropriate measures in place to help prevent, respond to, and reduce the impact of a terrorist attack if it occurs. Notably, for venues with attendees of over 800 people, physical protection such as video surveillance, vehicle access control, ground security, and more, must be considered and evaluated on a regular basis. AI-powered video solutions can help organizations meet their obligation under Martyn’s Law as part of a wider readiness strategy. Video surveillance systems Traditional video surveillance systems have always played a critical role in venue security, but their effectiveness has often relied on human operators monitoring dozens, or even hundreds, of video feeds simultaneously. In busy environments, critical details can be missed, particularly when security teams are managing large crowds, multiple entry points, and fast-moving situations. With AI-powered cameras and video management systems (VMS), operators no longer need to continuously monitor multiple video, chat, and sensor data streams. Instead, AI does the monitoring, flagging any suspicious activity, unauthorized objects (people and vehicles), crowd congestion, and so on, for operators to respond to if needed. Operators are freed up to focus on other activities, while the system will quickly alert them to events that require intervention, helping them respond to events rapidly and prevent situations from escalating. Ground teams also benefit from contextual, AI-powered insights that can help them track and locate a person or vehicle of interest, such as clothing color, direction of travel, and if they are potentially carrying a weapon. Multi-directional models By enabling security teams to assess and respond to situations before they develop into something more serious, venues are better prepared for some of the objectives underpinning Martyn's Law. The legislation places particular emphasis on preparedness, requiring organizations to consider how they would respond to incidents through measures such as evacuation, lockdown procedures, and effective communication. Situational awareness is fundamental to all four. Modern-day cameras equip operators with high-definition footage of an event or object of interest. Most cameras available on the market start at 1080p definition, with 4MP, 6MP, 8MP or 4K resolution options. Camera form factors have also improved, with dome, flat eye, bullet, fish eye, pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ), thermal, and multi-directional models providing venues with a range of options to fit any sized area and surveillance need. Monitoring crowd movements Real-time intelligence from video surveillance provides operators with a clearer understanding of what is happening across a venue and its surrounding environment. Vitally, AI-powered video analytics and AI object detection help operators to avoid missing events that need their attention and action. During an emergency, security teams can monitor crowd movements, identify potential bottlenecks, move towards the last known location of a potential attacker, and direct the public away from dangerous areas. Information on an attacker’s location, physical appearance, and direction of travel, plus the location of any casualties or people hiding within the venue, can be shared with on-site personnel and emergency services, helping to coordinate a faster and more efficient response. Multiple analytics triggers To further refine operator response times and efficiency, alerts can be set based on multiple analytics triggers, for example, if a person is detected crossing a line and then remains in a pre-defined area for a set number of seconds. For post-event investigations, operators can search footage quickly using the metadata stored within video. For example, they can pull up all footage of all people wearing a grey top, or, to filter this further, a child wearing a grey top. This improves the efficiency and speed of carrying out investigations. Generative AI tool Moreover, if a video analytics tool supports it, operators can use an AI-powered search feature that enables them to input a phrase or sentence of what they are looking for, with the system showing them all relevant results. This feature, known as semantic search, is a more natural way of searching akin to prompting a generative AI tool to come to a result. Operators can also select a specific area of interest to view all footage related to that area, allowing them to quickly find motion within that area. They can see all motion within that section on all captured video footage, to see, for example, who left a suspicious package in a room. Some video analytics systems can also pull footage of similar objects across multiple cameras, which can help track the direction of a vehicle or person of interest as they move across a busy and large event space. Wider entertainment districts Modern venue security increasingly extends beyond the perimeter fence or turnstile. Many new stadium developments are embedded within wider entertainment districts, retail destinations, and mixed-use communities. As a result, operators are responsible for understanding activity not only inside a venue but also across surrounding public spaces where large crowds gather before and after events. AI-enabled video helps operators to monitor large areas efficiently, maintaining situational awareness across multiple locations and mixed-use premises (the arena, retail, transport links, storage and backroom areas, and so forth). Operators gain a comprehensive understanding of potential risks and a stronger ability to respond before issues escalate. AI-powered video analytics There are also value-added benefits to other departments, such as marketing, sales, maintenance, staffing, and cleaning. Understanding and predicting busy periods and crowd flow patterns, alerting to long queue lengths, identifying congestion points, and monitoring vehicle movements and parking spaces all help to improve the visitor experience and streamline event operations. This is particularly useful for multi-use venues where one day a football match may be hosted, the next day a corporate event, and the following day a concert, with different stadium areas being used each time. Operators need visibility of how people move through their spaces and where resources are best deployed. AI-powered video analytics can provide that intelligence in real time. Venue leaders have a short window of opportunity to strengthen their security strategies ahead of Martyn’s Law coming into force. Investing in AI-powered video security shifts security into a proactive, value-generating function that meets the needs of today’s multi-use event spaces and helps to deliver the visitor experience that attendees have become accustomed to.

Hochiki Europe, working with Italian installer ELE.CO SRL, has completed the installation of a combined fire detection and emergency lighting system at a KOKO Emporio store in the Turin area. KOKO Emporio is a well-established value and family retailer with several stores across Torino and Moncalieri, offering home, clothing and lifestyle products to shoppers across the region. The store in question spans 800 square metres across a ground floor and basement. As with any busy retail floor, aisles and stock displays can make it harder for customers to find the nearest exit in an emergency, particularly those unfamiliar with the layout. The store needed a fire detection system that met current compliance requirements alongside emergency lighting capable of guiding staff and customers to safety during a fire or power failure. ESP intelligent fire detection ELE.CO SRL specified Hochiki's FIREscape+, which combines ESP intelligent fire detection with emergency lighting on a single four loop control panel. ALN-EN smoke sensors with adjustable sensitivity were installed throughout to reduce false alarms, and EN 54-23 compliant visual alarm devices were added to make alarm activation clearly visible to every occupant, working alongside ESP sounders to give full audible coverage. The basement presented a particular challenge. It houses separate retail and warehouse areas with long aisles, stock boxes and stairways, so the emergency lighting needed to keep the space illuminated and evacuation routes clear during a power outage. High power luminaries connected to the FIREscape+ panel now cover this area, guiding staff and customers to the nearest exit if the power fails or an evacuation is needed. Multi-site retail environment Ervin Peza, owner of ELE.CO SRL, said: "Hochiki's FIREscape+ system reduced installation costs significantly compared to installing two separate systems, making it the right choice for this application. Combining fire and emergency lighting on a single panel and loop reduces cabling, which simplifies both installation and maintenance." He added: "KOKO's new integrated fire and emergency lighting system means the store can run smoothly, day to day, with customers confident that any fire will be picked up quickly and that they can find their way to safety. Hochiki's addressable technology means the system can pinpoint the exact location of an incident and guide people along the safest route out, even if the power goes down." The installation shows how a combined, addressable fire and emergency lighting system can meet the practical demands of a busy, multi-site retail environment, giving store owners one system to manage rather than two.

Carrefour Brazil is one of the largest retail groups in Brazil and Latin America, operating more than 1,000 stores and serving a high volume of customers every day. Its Pamplona store in São Paulo, for example, located in one of the city’s busiest areas, greatly reflects the operational complexity faced by modern retailers: maintaining safety, reducing losses, improving efficiency, and delivering a better shopping experience at scale. Limited real-time visibility Challenges - Carrefour needed to address several key pain points. Manual processes and disconnected systems created risks of inaccurate alarms and inconsistent service. High customer traffic increased exposure to theft, fraud, and checkout losses, while traditional investigation methods made incident tracing slow and inefficient. At the same time, limited real-time visibility into customer flow, queues, inventory, and in-store behavior made it difficult to optimize staffing, replenishment, store layout, and checkout efficiency. Unified retail ecosystem Solutions - To meet these needs, Dahua provided an integrated smart retail solution combining video surveillance, AI analytics, alarm linkage, customer flow analysis, and digital in-store technologies. The solution was built around Dahua’s DSS PRO platform, Retail Loss Prevention IVD/IVSS, Retail NVR, AcuPick intelligent search, people-counting cameras, Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) integration, alarm host, access control, electronic shelf labels, and digital signage. These systems work together to connect security, operations, and customer engagement within a unified retail ecosystem. Integration of video surveillance For loss prevention, Dahua’s video analytics can detect suspicious behaviors such as item concealment and issue real-time alerts to security staff. Integration with EAS and intrusion alarms provides immediate contextual information for each alarm, helping teams respond faster and more accurately. High-value merchandise is further protected with anti-theft tags, while restricted storage areas are secured through access control. In the event of an incident, AcuPick and intelligent video analysis can be used to track the movement paths of customers or employees, significantly reducing investigation time. The solution is also projected to checkout and self-checkout security. Cart analysis can help to identify unscanned items, while intelligent barriers at self-checkout stations prevent customers from exiting before completing payment. Looking ahead, the integration of video surveillance with transaction data can further support automated sales auditing, discrepancy detection, and faster resolution of operational variances. Data-driven store operations Beyond security, Dahua’s smart retail technologies support data-driven store operations. People-counting cameras, customer flow analysis, queue monitoring, and heatmap analysis provide Carrefour with insights into occupancy, peak hours, movement patterns, high-traffic areas, and dwell time. This can help to optimize staff scheduling, product placement, promotional planning, and checkout lane management. Shelf replenishment monitoring enable detection of low stock or abnormal product removal and triggers real-time alerts, helping prevent lost sales and improving product availability. Dahua also enhanced the in-store customer experience through electronic shelf labels and digital signage. Electronic shelf labels enable automatic price updates, reduce manual errors, and support promotional communication. Digital signage and point-of-sale displays provide product information, strengthen brand presence, and create a more interactive shopping environment. Interactive shopping environment Results - As a result, Carrefour Brazil now operates in a safer, more efficient, and more connected retail environment. The project improves operational visibility, strengthens loss prevention, accelerates incident analysis, supports better staffing and merchandising decisions, and enhances the customer journey from entrance to checkout. Through this collaboration, Dahua helped Carrefour transform traditional store management into an intelligent retail model powered by integrated security, analytics, and digital engagement.

Comelit-PAC has partnered with Optic Fire & Security Solutions to deliver an upgrade to the fire alarm system at Rampworx Skatepark, the UK’s largest indoor extreme sports center. Established in 1997, Rampworx is one of the UK’s longest-running skateparks and a major community facility in Merseyside. As a registered charity, it supports more than 1,000 young people every week and reinvests all income back into maintaining and developing its skatepark, programmes and retail operations. Multiple interconnected areas With a large and constantly active indoor environment, Rampworx required a fire alarm system capable of delivering consistent coverage across multiple interconnected areas. These included skate zones, spectator spaces, retail units and staff facilities while allowing daily activity to continue without disruption. Says Rachael Robinson at Rampworx Skatepark: “As a busy charity facility with thousands of weekly visitors, it was important for us to work with a company we could trust to guide us through the entire upgrade process for our fire alarm. Optic Fire Safety & Security Solutions understood the requirements and recommended a Comelit-PAC solution. The new system provides confidence and peace of mind, knowing it has been designed around us and the way we operate.” Live operational environment Optic Fire Safety & Security Solutions worked closely with Rampworx to design and install a tailored system using Comelit-PAC fire safety systems, ensuring the solution reflected both the operational demands and the unique layout of the building site. The installation was delivered within a live operational environment, requiring careful planning and coordination to ensure the skatepark remained open throughout much of the works. Optic Fire Safety & Security Solutions phased the installation to minimize disruption to visitors, staff and ongoing activities. Sase Boardman, Director at Optic Fire Safety & Security Solutions added: “Every area of Rampworx presented different considerations from a fire safety perspective. By working closely with the team and technical specialists at Comelit-PAC, we were able to carefully deliver a fire safety system known for its adaptability, reliability, and scalability to provide consistent protection across a complex, multi-use environment.” Fire detection coverage The completed system provides enhanced fire detection coverage across the entire facility, improving response capability and strengthening life safety provision for users, staff and volunteers. Mandy Bowden, Fire Systems Business Manager UK & ROI: “This project was delivered through close collaboration with Optic Fire Safety & Security Solutions and Responsible Persons on site, taking time to understand the specific requirements of the Rampworx environment. By combining this insight, we were able to specify a bespoke fire safety system, enabling a unified detection and control approach across areas with very different occupancy and risk profiles.”

3DX-RAY is pleased to announce that its advanced AXIS CXi mailroom screening system has been selected to protect a government facility in Lithuania from the ever-present threat of postal bombs, hazardous substances, and other prohibited items. The AXIS CXi represents a significant advancement in mailroom screening technology. Its color imaging capability enables operators not only to identify the shape of objects but also to assess the composition of materials. Organic materials—including explosives, narcotics, chemicals, and even benign items such as food—are highlighted in orange. Metals such as firearms, knives, and potential IED components appear in blue, while inorganic materials commonly associated with improvised explosives are shown in green. A greyscale mode supports precise shape recognition. Maintaining operational efficiency This multi-layered visualization allows operators, even with minimal training, to conduct more accurate, efficient, and confident assessments, helping organizations strengthen security while maintaining operational efficiency. The AXIS CXi cabinet X-ray system has been evaluated using the UK Mail Screening Test Piece (MSTP), a recognised methodology for assessing imaging performance in mail screening systems. The evaluation includes Tests 1–8, which examine factors such as resolution, penetration and the identification of complex materials within mail items. These results provide an indication of system performance and are intended to support organisations in selecting appropriate screening capabilities as part of a broader mail security strategy aligned with the principles of PAS 97:2021. Beyond imaging performance Beyond imaging performance, the AXIS CXi introduces a notable innovation in system design. It combines an exceptionally large inspection chamber with a compact footprint, enabling the screening of not only mail and parcels but also larger items such as bags and aircraft cabin luggage. The system is fully mobile and features a modern, unobtrusive design, making it suitable for deployment across a wide variety of environments, including government offices, corporate headquarters, hotel lobbies, financial institutions, and retail locations. Critical infrastructure environments Vince Deery, CEO of 3DX-RAY, commented: "AXIS CXi was originally developed to bring the advanced color differentiation technology used in airport baggage screening into the mailroom environment. Since its launch, the system has quickly demonstrated its versatility across a broad range of security applications.” “We are delighted to have secured this latest order from Lithuania, further expanding the growing international deployment of AXIS CXi systems. Government organizations face an increasingly complex range of threats delivered through the postal and parcel network, and AXIS CXi provides security teams with the tools they need to detect suspicious items quickly, accurately, and with confidence. This contract reinforces the system’s reputation as a highly effective and adaptable screening solution for organizations where security is paramount." The award further strengthens 3DX-RAY’s presence in the European security market and highlights the increasing demand for advanced, user-friendly screening solutions capable of addressing evolving security threats in government and critical infrastructure environments.

Genetec Inc., the pioneer in enterprise physical security software, announces 40 Leadenhall has deployed Genetec™ Security Center and Genetec Mission Control™ to create a seamless modern experience for visitors and tenants. Located in the capital’s insurance district, 40 Leadenhall is one of the biggest City of London developments ever to receive planning permission. It spans over 900,000 square feet of commercial office, amenities, and retail space, serving up to 10,000 occupants. Original performance specification A unified security platform formed part of the original performance specification, with Genetec Security Center ultimately selected to give 40 Leadenhall the flexibility to integrate best of breed hardware and software, support informed decision making, and tailor the interface to a wide range of user needs and access privileges. “Genetec is proud to be safeguarding a growing portfolio of flagship buildings across the City of London - including some of its newest and largest developments,” said Viet Tang, Account Executive at Genetec Inc. “40 Leadenhall is a standout example of how forward thinking property owners are embracing unified, intelligent security to deliver safer, more efficient and more intuitive environments.” Standardising incident response The smart building solution incorporates over 200 cameras, more than 250 doors, and 2,600 data points, all managed through Genetec Security Center and hosted on Genetec Streamvault™ servers and archives. Genetec Mission Control™ further enhances operations by standardising incident response with advanced automation. By integrating with other building systems, it can automatically trigger workflows for events such as power loss, water leaks, or high winds thus enabling teams to respond proactively with timely notifications and targeted actions that help ensure occupant safety. Access control and visitor experience technologies from partners including HID Global, Mercury Communications, and STid help enable seamless navigation throughout the facility. Occupiers can use mobile wallet credentials for frictionless entry, while visitors receive QR code passes that remove the need for temporary plastic cards. Integrated cameras from Axis Communications enhance situational awareness across the site. Truly smart building Genetec workstations located throughout the building provide role based access for operators. Reception staff can enrol visitors, while control-room security teams can run reports, investigate events, and monitor live video on either dedicated workstations or tablets. “The Genetec security system is easy to use and enables us to deliver a world class service to our occupiers and guests, ensuring occupant wellbeing and building security,” says Stewart Maynard, Smart Systems Manager at 40 Leadenhall. “Collaboration between delivery, systems and service partner teams has helped make 40 Leadenhall a truly smart building.” Quickly identify devices By uploading interactive floor plans into Security Center, operators can quickly identify devices, investigate activity, or access live video with a single click, significantly reducing training times. The building’s digital experience is further enhanced through integration with the 40 Leadenhall app, powered by VTS Activate. Occupiers can issue virtual visitor passes, receive arrival notifications, and seamlessly access amenities including wellness spaces, cycle facilities and the Peloton studio. “We believe Genetec provides the ideal platform to support 40 Leadenhall’s future growth and technology goals,” concludes Maynard. “The investment in leading technology, supported by strong partnerships, positions 40 Leadenhall at the forefront of innovation.”

Historically, physical security systems have protected retail companies’ assets, people, and profits. Security prevents theft (shrinkage), while maintaining order and ensuring a safe environment for customers and staff. Today’s retail business is changing by leaps and bounds, driven in large part by technology advances. Newer physical security systems are finding new ways to deter crime and provide operational data, in the process preserving brand reputation and ensuring the business remains viable and welcoming. We asked our Expert Panel Roundtable: What's new in retail applications for physical security?

Cloud implementations enable organizations to slash IT costs, boost performance, increase efficiency, and provide flexibility in a variety of applications. Cloud computing is a great way to store and access data from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection. In the case of video management, Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) systems are becoming more popular, both as a means of managing costs and to deliver expectations of accessing video from any device anywhere in the world. But on-premise video management systems (VMSs) still have a role to play, don’t they? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the continuing role of video management systems (VMS), given the growth in Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS)? 

Video storage has come a long way since rooms full of VCRs stored video from an entire system of cameras. Video storage equates to data storage, and there are multiple options ranging from hard disk storage to the cloud to storage on each individual camera using SD cards. Increasingly, cloud-based storage is an attractive option to store video footage conveniently and safely. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How is expansion of video storage capabilities impacting the security industry?