Early on in the sessions at the Security Industry Association’s (SIA) premier business-of-security conference, Securing New Ground, held October 14 – 15 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, Milestone’s Vice President Americas, Tim Palmquist, made an analogy that caught fire at the conference. He suggested that the security industry today is like the cattle rancher who has just discovered there is oil under the ground. The traditional way of doing security is the cattle business, and all of the data security systems produce is the oil. While the data isn’t new, the ability to extract it and make sense of it for the customer is now a reality with the advent of artificial intelligence. The trick is how to monetize it and take advantage of it.

This concept sparked many conversations and references throughout the conference, and “data as the new oil” was certainly the catchphrase of the event. But there are big questions around that concept when it comes to implementation, what it all means and what the role of the security dealer and integrator is in this rapidly changing ecosystem. The opportunities it presents are vast, but there is also the possibility of getting left behind if you don’t adopt new technologies and solutions. On the other hand, there is danger in leaping too fast and picking the “wrong” AI that doesn’t work for you or your customer. Then there is the question of who actually “owns” this data, and who is going to pay for the solution to extract and make sense of it?

This Year’s Shiny New Object

There were few presentations that didn’t mention AI, from an interview with Ambient.ai CEO and co-founder Shikhar Shrestha, who expressed pleasant surprise that AI was the mainstay of conversations at SNG, through to the last presentation of the event on investment insights for the security industry where Alper Cetingok, head of diversified industrials for Raymond James, said, “AI is affecting the way people are thinking in our space.”

From beginning to end, it was clear that AI is the shiny new object, not just of the security industry but almost everywhere. But there were also notes of caution and advice about how to talk about AI to end users. 

“It is a disservice we have done to ourselves by calling everything AI,” Shrestha said. “It is four or five different underlying technologies. True AI has the ability to do contextual reasoning. Maybe 55% of companies at ISC West this year claimed to have AI, but probably only 5% really did.”

The promise of AI is in that oil extraction analogy, he continued. “Data is just being wasted today. There is so much data in access control or video. Every time there is an incident at a site, some trace of that is in the system they already have installed. The information is there. The biggest realization is that once you bring all that together and view what is important, the value of that is absolutely transformational.”

End users who spoke at SNG were clear that is what they want. On day two, Bobby Louissant, head of technical partnership engagement, GSST, Meta, gave a synopsis of his thoughts on the conference: “From the meetings yesterday, there is a lot of discussion about AI, cloud computing, convergence of technologies and systems, but not much about action within products on these topics. Are we overcomplicating things when it comes to AI? Are we overthinking it? We need some basic tools, but not necessarily new tools. We need them native in the tools we already have. … We don’t want or necessarily need new tools. We have enough tools.”

Former chief security officer for Starbucks, Cheryl Steele, shared similar insights on a panel about how top security leaders are navigating a new era: “There is an overuse of the term AI. It can become this catch-all for so many things, it can become squishy. What is the delivery? Is it agentic? Is it machine learning or large field data analytics? Sometimes it is all those things, or a segment of them.”

While AI may have been the “star” of the show in terms of talking points, it was far from the only “shiny object” brought up. As Louissant alluded to, cloud, RMR, convergence and even biometrics all took prominent conversational turns as well. And some of those concepts are far from new.

“AI is a pretty significant trend, but next year there is going to be another trend and then another,” said Christian Morin, vice president, product engineering, Genetec on a panel of chief technology officers about how tomorrow’s technology advancements will change the business model. “What is new and shiny today may not be applicable today, but what was new and shiny five years ago actually might.”

Another panelist on the CTO topic, Ewa Pigna, CTO, Honeywell, acknowledged that the security industry isn’t always the fastest at adopting new technologies, particularly for larger customers with a lot of money invested in legacy systems. “The name of this panel is CTO, so that implies it is just about technology; but tech for tech’s sake isn’t really the point,” she said. “As we look at our roles, we are moving to be business enablers that take shiny new objects and apply those. … Our role is to translate that value. What is the art of the possible verses the very future possible? This industry doesn’t move very fast, but it is probably for the right reasons. We take measured approaches to drive adoption, and regulations and regionalism all come into play.”

Industry Challenges

Of course, industry conference like these also spend time analyzing and discussing ways to overcome common industry challenges, and this year was no exception. As Pigna alluded, the slowness of adoption of any new technology — from smart cards and biometrics to IP and AI — has been an ongoing trend. While end user adoption is one part of that, another is that, often, game-changing technologies also come with a change in the business model that can be hard to adapt to.

The security industry is seeing that now, not only with the fast-moving AI transformation, but also with cloud computing and adjusting to RMR-based models.

Another member of the CTO panel, Martin Gren, co-founder of Axis Communications and inventor of the IP camera, commented on how that transformative technology also hit bumps in adoption. “The big change wasn’t analog to IP, but really the business model,” he said. “Now, with RMR, the challenge is the channel. How do you manage it and compensate for it?”

Morin agreed. “Cloud is a good example. As the world is becoming more software-defined, some of the jobs that were done by security integrators are not anymore. You will be doing something different tomorrow. Reinvention of the business goes hand-in-hand with technology advances.”

The only integrator on that panel, Eric Dean, CEO, security and electronic systems for M.C. Dean, added, “Not that long ago, our focus was to be an authorized dealer of X brands. Now we have a bunch of software engineers creating custom solutions for our customers. What the business model is changing for integrators is we can’t just take hardware and install it anymore. Now if you aren’t doing software, you are going to be left behind.”

John Nemerofsky, chief operating officer of SAGE Integration, also brought up business model changes in a panel on the state of the security integrator on day two. “Reports have become dashboards; analytics are now predictive. As far as SaaS models, as an integrator you need to build a platform or program for yourselves to launch that — not just for sales but accounting and delivery teams. Part of that is education and certification. And working on your client’s networks today, you also need to have that cybersecurity awareness. That’s table stakes for being in the game.”

Integrators aren’t the only ones experiencing a shift in roles, either. Louissant of Meta also touched on this regarding chief information officers vs. chief security officers, and who gets the money. “Security devices are an attractive asset to CIO’s because of the value of AI. In today’s world, data is the new oil. But there was a comment about IT taking over security for the last 20 years, and we are still here. The reality is we fight IT every year during budgets. They are banging on our door to come take our stuff, particularly today with the data they can pull out of our systems. We have the most sensors hanging on the walls.”

Louissant also had a message for the integrators in the audience about the changes in the channel, which was last year’s top SIA Megatrend, ahead of AI. “I ran a channel. I have also realized the world has changed and the channel isn’t up to par with a lot of end users. We have become very technical. If you are not training your sales teams to be as technical as we are, you just can’t compete. Most of the time, we are already talking to the manufacturer. We are bringing the deal to our integrator partners after we have talked to them. There is a new, hybrid approach, the value chain. There are a lot of people involved in the decisions we have to make to get the funding that is appropriate.”

Karen Frank, managing director and head of firm security services for KPMG had a similar take on the securing the future end user panel, noting that she has no qualms about approaching manufacturers direct, then coming to an integrator about implementing a solution. “We are disrupting the channel and we will continue to do that when we want to learn about product offerings. … We already know the answer before we ask you the question.”

Big Ticket Takeaways

From AI to channel disruptions, there were a number of important threads attendees could take away from these panels and conversations.

Perhaps the biggest is that no one can face all these changes and disruptors in a vacuum, and partnerships and working together — whether that means bringing multiple stakeholders inside a customer’s company together for a sale or working much more closely with manufacturer or fellow integrator partners — will be a critical part of any company’s success. 

“We are going from competition to collaboration,” Pigna said. “If we don’t line ourselves up together, the entire industry will be backwards looking.”

Two illuminating discussions happened on the second day; an end user panel on securing the future was immediately followed by the state of the integrator panel.

In the former, end users explained what was most important to them.

David Fortino, head of corporate security, New York Blood Center Enterprises, asked the audience, “How are you going to make my life easier? It is that simple. Are you going to take stress off my plate and deliver that in a way that will work for the enterprise? If you are only talking to me on the physical side, you should be concerned. Because I am looking for a tool that will help the entire enterprise, not just me. There should be IT and legal and HR involved. … There needs to be both value and ROI.”

Starbucks’ Steele echoed that sentiment. “I am not a siloed buyer when it comes to technical solutions. I need to be able to socialize with a bunch of other stakeholders to get the funding required. There is also a process of prioritization. I don’t own the technology structure of the company, so it is about how to build the case that what I want is more important than a massive update to our POS. The second component is ease of integration with what we already have. We are working off an infrastructure that is pretty heavily invested in. What am I bringing in that will be additive and quick to get into use?”

Steele also referenced the changing channel. “That relationship needs to be more of a circle than before,” he said. “Integrators and manufacturers are both trusted partners. Often, we will talk to manufacturers ahead of the integrator, and, a lot of times, we will bring our own solutions to an integrator.”

This new frontier of partnerships was then revisited on the integrator panel.

Ken Poole, chief revenue officer for Security 101, talked about the importance of relationships, from face-to-face meetings with customers to working more closely with manufacturers. “It’s still a people business,” he said. “Relationships are everything. … I used to think of manufacturers as competitors, but I have changed my feeling on that. One of us doesn’t solve every end user’s problem. It is those partnerships.”

John Palumbo, president, commercial, Unlimited Security, also stressed the importance of tying those relationships with end users as well as integrators and bringing everyone together. “More of that needs to happen on a regular basis,” he said.

But much of that panel’s conversation focused most on how to adjust to all the changes, not only in the channel, but also in technology and what is being asked of them as integrators. “We are truly seeing a demand to be more than just an installer,” Poole said. “We talk about the security industry lagging behind a bit, and, today, we can’t do that. We are not just cable pullers. Customers are looking for help. We are thought leaders in the industry. A lot of things work in theory, but not in practice, and it is about seeing the difference between being asked for a video system to, ‘We need you to help us with a solution.’ … Our customers are confused. They are coming to us and saying, ‘Help. We don’t have the time to figure this out.’ With meetings like this and networking, we are working more closely together than we ever have before, whether with manufacturers or each other. It’s exciting times in our industry.”

Scott Elkins, CEO, Zeus Fire & Security, discussed the importance of becoming a trusted service provider. “I believe end users are looking for us to be a service provider to bring that value chain all the way through to the recurring revenue model and provide the quality support they need,” he said. “SaaS is not new on the alarm side, but it is to the integrator side of the building … and it’s creating real value for the end user. Sometimes, that gets lost in what we do. Services like these can change and save lives, and it is our responsibility to ensure end users understand the role we can play in that.”

On the first day of the conference, there were a series of roundtable discussions over lunch. At one of them, some suggested that security integrators are not vetting and adopting new technologies quick enough, and, if they don’t, they might be relegated to just being a “cable puller” while others on the managed services and IT integrator side might take more of the business. Based on subsequent panels and discussions, this is not an empty threat. But there are also clearly a number of savvy integrators out there looking to the future and planning to adapt.

So, the question is, do you want to be a cattle rancher or an oil tycoon? Or, perhaps, you can be both?