In the interest of staying ahead of the evolving market, SDM also sat down with monitoring professionals in a roundtable-style discussion to lay the foundation for the next 18 months. In summary, AI is going to influence every part of the process: internal operations, operators’ workflows, how dealers, integrators and end users interact with systems and how video monitoring will work — shifting from a reactive tool to proactive solution.

AI was a hot topic in The Monitoring Association’s (TMA) column, in which TMA CEO Whitney A. Doll recaps key discussions from the association’s mid-year meeting. She writes, “As the industry continues adopting AI-driven video services, the conversation is evolving beyond the technology itself and is now focused on a more practical question: How can AI improve monitoring operations while still preserving the human judgment customers and first responders rely on?” The answer, as she explores in her article, is careful evaluation of the right tools and the understanding of what AI is really doing inside of monitoring centers. (Spoiler: It’s not replacing any operators!)

The Electronic Security Association’s (ESA) Hannah Boone also recaps a recent industry event: ESX 2026, which featured a number of educational sessions focused on monitoring. The article explores one session titled “Beyond Security: Unlocking the Value of Video Intelligence,” in which presenters shared their insights on the RMR opportunities that proactive video monitoring and intelligent video analytics are providing to integrators. Boone writes, “Today’s security systems integrators can leverage the capabilities of remote video monitoring coupled with intelligent video analytics to provide clients with proactive threat detection, quicker and more appropriate response, reduced costs and meaningful operational insights to enhance their efficiencies.”

As always, in an evolving market teeming with opportunity, there are headwinds and key considerations to be aware of. Peter P. Giacalone, a security professional for 40 years, highlights notification fatigue as one of these things that just can’t be ignored. “Notification fatigue occurs when users are overwhelmed by frequent, often unnecessary alerts,” he writes. “When every minor motion such as debris, animals or familiar and known individuals active in a camera’s view triggers a notification, operators and end users can quickly become desensitized. Over time, this leads to slower response times, missed critical events or even users ignoring alerts.” Giacalone argues that this is more than an inconvenience; it’s a genuine risk and a major liability. His article outlines one of the most effective ways to combat this: subject verification.

The world of video monitoring is a complex one, but I hope this issue will help you explore the nuances and various methods of entrance, expansion and differentiation in the market.