As a child in the 1970s, I grew up watching the futuristic Jetsons cartoon. As an adult with three (now grown sons) and a menagerie of pets, I would love to have a Rosie the robot to clean my house for me. Unfortunately, the only choices out there to date for robot cleaners don’t have the best track record with handling pet messes — or the ability to climb stairs in my multi-level house.

As a teen in the 1980s, I was informed by movies and popular culture that some robots can become self-aware and dangerous and want to take over the world, replacing the humans that created them.

Today’s security industry — and indeed larger society — somewhat straddles those two paradigms.

“We live somewhere between the Jetson’s cartoon and CSI Miami when it comes to educating customers about what robots and AI automation can actually do for you,” says Michael Quiroga of FC Robotics in this month’s cover story on autonomous security solutions.

Quiroga describes his company — just 60 days old at the time of writing the article — as the “integrator of the future,” with a mission to prove the use case for robots and drones to the security industry.

The best-case scenarios for autonomous solutions today are those that augment — not replace — the human element, helping customers to do their jobs more efficiently, cost-effectively and also to do things a human can’t — such as patrol a hostile perimeter environment or go into hazardous environments that would be dangerous for a human.

Another interesting company featured in the article is LandSkyAI, which was formed by the next generation of a traditional family-owned integration business to be on the forefront of the autonomous technology trend.

“The idea behind LandSkyAI was, ‘How can we make adoption simple for security?’ We sell the full virtual guard package and bundle in our 24/7 pilot and monitoring team,” explains Founder and CEO Jake Shild. “We have the regulatory process figured out and a lot of the maintenance and remote support. We try to make it very easy for them to resell to their end users because they don’t have the time to become experts in drones and robots.”

These are just two of several companies I spoke to for the article, and what I learned was eye-opening. While I may pine for a completely autonomous Rosie, the reality today — and for the foreseeable future — is that robots, drones and other autonomous solutions rely on skilled human intervention.

The best-case scenarios for autonomous solutions today are those that augment — not replace — the human element, helping customers to do their jobs more efficiently, cost-effectively, and also to do things a human can’t — such as patrol a hostile perimeter environment or go into hazardous situations that would be dangerous for a human.

For security integrators, the opportunities around autonomous security solutions are only just starting to emerge, but the time to start thinking about them is now.

With the fast-paced adoption of all things AI, more widespread use of autonomous solutions like drones and robots will likely not be far behind. The robots are coming. Are you ready?