From the conference room to the show floor, the keywords heard again and again at ISC West were convergence, cybersecurity, cloud and, of course, AI. But at its heart, this show was truly about connections — literal and figurative — whether connecting technologies together under “one pane of glass,” connecting IT and physical security, connecting with your customers or just connecting with one another to share ideas.

Photo courtesy of SDM staff.Before I even set foot on the show floor, I attended part of the 14th annual DMP Owners forum, held Tuesday, March 24 in the Rose Ballroom at Resorts World. The theme that came through from the two keynote speakers was connection with customers. Chris Voss, a former FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator turned motivational speaker talked about the concept of “tactical empathy” and how building common ground is the key to building trust and influence. Later in the day, Dr. Robert Cialdini, a thought leader in the fields of influence and persuasion, went through the key ways to produce a “yes” by making the right kinds of connections with customers. 

Another “connection” highlight came prior to the show floor opening at Stone Security’s event at its Vegas location. The company highlighted its new “StoneConnect” ecosystem, unifying its solutions that span security and business operations — video, access control, two-way radios, storage, cloud, alert systems, mobile assets and identity systems.

Photo courtesy of SDM staff.“One thing I have learned in this industry is that everybody always knows exactly how the system should be built until it’s their problem to actually make it all work together,” said Andy Schreyer, vice president of technology, Stone Security, at the gathering. “That’s really what led us to think how we wanted to approach this.”

For members of the security media, the annual Axis Communications press breakfast has become the traditional start to the first day of the show, and part of the fun is guessing what costume company CEO Martin Gren will wear to illustrate the year’s theme. In the past, he has been a race car driver, an astronaut and a baseball player, to name a few memorable ones. This year, we were greeted by Fredrik Nilsson, vice president, Americas, with the disappointing news that Gren had dropped a box on his foot and would have to miss the show this year. Nilsson and Andres Vigren, global product manager, then discussed the theme of “unifying worlds” and securing the future together, highlighting some of the company’s new products, including a back box for private cellular networks, a global shutter camera combining professional photography with video surveillance, a new AI edge-based LPR, a dual thermal/4K camera and more.

Gif courtesy of SDM staff.

As we would soon find out, luckily, Gren’s absence was just a ruse. He showed up part way through, posing as a hacker and interrupting the presentation; shortly after, he made his appearance in person, assuring us that, while he did indeed injure his foot, he would not miss ISC West. “Cyber-risks target the very devices this industry depends on,” Gren said of the stunt, adding that cybersecurity has been part of the company’s DNA since the introduction of the first network camera. “We do a decent job as an industry,” Nilsson added. “[But] with the unifying of IT and security, cybersecurity is more important than ever.”

As if on cue, the theme of cybersecurity was reinforced by an accidental but timely audio incident where we could hear “testing, testing, 1,2,3” several times over the loudspeaker.

Photo courtesy of SDM staff.But the main event of the breakfast was a panel discussion about cybersecurity issues with Eric Yunag, executive vice president of products and services for Convergint; Tim Vanevenhoven, director of business development and strategic partnerships for HPE Networking; and Roy Dagan, CEO of SecuriThings. Yunag stressed how AI and cybersecurity, in particular, have changed the way security integrators need to approach their business and customers. “It is a connected world with more systems and more devices to realize the promise of AI,” he said. “That pressure is enormous. Our industry has lived on the run/fail mindset for years. That is no longer acceptable as more devices proliferate.”

As Vanevenhoven put it, “Hope isn’t a strategy when you are likely to get hacked.” 

Yunag described this moment in time as a technology change unlike anything we have seen before, and something every part of the channel is navigating right now. “It is challenging a lot of the ways traditional security practitioners have thought about security,” he said. “The expectations are much higher. Customers expect us to create an environment of more efficiency while, at the same time, being thoughtful about privacy, data residency and more.

“As a physical security industry, our stakeholders are fundamentally shaping things,” Yunag added. “There are more cameras, more card readers. One of the things we are doing more and more is helping our customers make a business case for security. That is a significant reorientation. … The channel is not a linear path anymore. That model doesn’t meet the moment.” What is more evident today, he said, is the need for strong partnerships with manufacturers and customers — the consultative approach. “Customers are expecting different things.”

Going into this show, I fully expected to hear about AI, AI and more AI. And I did, but it was different this year. It wasn’t necessarily the first thing mentioned, and, sometimes, wasn’t mentioned by name at all. AI has seemingly moved from the “next hot technology” to real use cases and applications. It was less, “Look at our cool new AI toy,” and more, “Here is our latest application/solution/product and what it can do for your business — and by the way, it uses AI.”

Tim Palmquist, vice president, Americas region, Milestone, noted the AI trend in the industry, but turned to conversation to the data it helps to make sense of. “We are good at capturing everything and delivering on safety and security; that is table stakes,” he said. “But if you can apply tools to understand what matters most, you change the productivity and efficiency of your end customers. And to do that we use tools instead of humans. … Piles of data is not good enough anymore as a business model. … We are starting to take those insights and predict what they will care about tomorrow and the next day.”

Chris Brown, CEO, Immix, observed that the AI-forward structure, rather than solutions that can be built upon with AI, doesn’t work in the life safety industry. “I’m not sure the world is ready for an autonomous agent to manage everything that comes our way,” he said.

Photo courtesy of Verkada.

Applying AI tools to help humans do their jobs better was a topic of conversation almost everywhere, from WeSuite’s new AI-based Selena sales software and Brivo’s AI video agent Eeva to Brown’s suggestion that giving monitoring center operators AI is like giving everyone a digital personal assistant. At IQSight (the former Bosch Video business), Matt Cirnigliaro, head of product marketing, talked about how their newest offerings use generative AI to add context, adding how the company’s new name is a play on “visual intelligence.” At Verkada’s extravagant Louvre-inspired booth, the company highlighted numerous new AI solutions, all designed to detect, deter and communicate more effectively.

At Genetec, we had an interesting conversation about a possible unintended consequence AI is having on the security industry — pushing cloud forward. “There is another global chip shortage, caused by AI companies purchasing all the chips,” said Alex Halliday, director of sales and enablement, North America. “Major chip manufacturers sold out of inventory by January,” he said. Customers are now pivoting to cloud-based or hybrid-based solutions in part as a server reduction strategy and because it removes the requirement for hardware refreshes. “There has been a significant shift to move to hybrid and cloud,” he added. “Security as an industry practice has been somewhat adverse to change, and now these changes are very rapid. But we are working with our channel and end users and IT departments and cloud is a big advantage. The days of ‘set it and forget it” are over. Now customers are used to continuous updates.

“The term used to be security is a cost center,” he said. “Now it is about data-rich tools and what you are able to tell organizations about maximizing and leveraging that. Our partners are heavily engaged in showing that value, even outside of security for business alignment.”

At Securitas, Serdar Ince, vice president, technology innovation, gave a tour of the company’s new Securistat Cumulus offering, a cloud-based product using generative AI to give customers a single pane of glass and the ability to use almost any camera in the cloud. “No one wants hardware on-stie,” he said. “This supports camera to cloud. They install the app on the camera and start streaming directly to the cloud.”

While dependent on customer bandwidth, when configured correctly the solution can even allow older regular video cameras to read license plates using AI processing in the cloud. “I believe cloud is having an inflexion point,” Ince said. “The cloud will push our industry to outcome-based solutions and make our industry more efficient.”

While cloud may be having a moment, AI is still the backbone of everything. And while it is definitely becoming an ingrained part of almost every new security solution, it is at the end of the day, still finding its place.

As Don Young, CEO of Everon put it, “Everyone is trying to make a case for work or advancement on leveraging AI. One-third are actually delivering something meaningful; one-third are talking about it but not ready to deliver; and the others are just thinking about it. Everyone gets the message that if you are not talking about AI, then people are going to move on. But apart from that, the big trend is leveraging video and technology in bigger ways than in the past. It is more than just intrusion and security, but business value. End users are coming to this conference at least more curious if not demanding that the solutions they buy from us deliver more value in other ways.” — Karyn Hodgson, SDM Editor-in-Chief, and Bri Wilson, SDM Managing Editor