2024 is officially here. With the landscape of the security industry continuing to evolve, end users are seeking advanced solutions to address emerging challenges. We asked our community, a community of over 2500 end users in the industry, what they’re looking for in the New Year. Here are the top 5.

1. Artificial Intelligence and Video Analytics

This wasn’t a surprise from our community. AI continues to shape the industry by storm with nearly every manufacturer offering some component of it. The evolution of video analytics have also come a long way. The majority of our community said that they use video analytics across their organization. The most popular being facial recognition. Manufacturers such as Oosto (AnyVision), FaceFirst, and Avigilon were the ones most brought up. We will probably do a deep dive on FR in another article. That said, our community said they are mostly using AI to enhance threat detection, recognize patterns, and identify anomalies in real-time. Being that most of our community comes from an enterprise environment (gaming, retail, healthcare, etc.) this progressive behavior is normal, and we would argue, necessary. Those end users who haven’t implemented AI/video analytics are the ones who are most likely to experience challenges.

2. Cybersecurity Solutions

With what happened in Vegas gaming, cyber threats continue to grow in complexity and frequency. We won’t go into depth, but our sources tell us that most casinos pay off these hackers. Mostly because they lack the internal resources to prevent them. Next-generation firewalls and threat hunting intelligence platforms are among the key technologies sought after to fortify digital defenses. While our community is predominately on the physical side of the security industry, many consumers are saying cyber is of crucial importance for them this year. We aim to cover cybersecurity more in 2024.

3. Mobile Access Control

To no surprise, seamless/digital access is becoming more and more common. We covered mobile access in a previous article from our community. The story of leveraging proxy cards for access is becoming less and less common. In 2024, end users are expected to prioritize solutions that offer seamless and secure authentication. Other than mobile, we’ve had some end users express using facial recognition as credentials for access with even some pairing the two for dual authentication purposes. Consumers in the critical infrastructure, logistics, and financial industry seem to be leveraging these types of technologies the most.

4. Robotics/Unmanned Systems

Have robots finally arrived? Per our community, many are expressing the interest for incorporating some form of unmanned system into their organization. While there are many players in the market, the ones we have heard about the most are Knightscope, Asylon, and Nightingale. Who wouldn’t want robot dog roaming the property? Equipping these systems with IoT/emerging technologies makes the value prop even more compelling. Organizations such as Six Flags Entertainment & Merecedes Benz Stadium are some early adopters of this tech from an enterprise perspective. The challenges for these systems though is the reliability and justification of a price point in the industry. Some of these systems cost upwards to $250K and even more depending on all the bells and whistles you want. Does it make sense for these systems to reside in certain markets of the industry? Or can it be used by the average consumer?

5. Cloud

Probably the most surprising in our community was the favorability of adopting cloud solutions. Cloud isn’t new technology but rather something that was probably marketed the worst in our industry. Even today, some manufacturers do a poor job of explaining how the concept of cloud works. With an industry that has operated on, on-prem solutions, for so long, the thought of adopting cloud services seemed to become obsolete. But in our community, cloud seems to be taking off. We spoke with a Safety Manager of a City in Texas who said, “We favor cloud for multiple reasons. The ability to implement, upgrade, and troubleshoot technologies almost becomes near autonomous with cloud. Sure, folks get concerned about uptime but that’s why you put in failover.” Cloud does come with its list of perks compared to conventional methods of servers. The key is to prioritize the solutions that ensure the protection of data stored in the cloud.

As this year will bring its own level of challenges, end users in the industry are actively seeking technologies that provide comprehensive protection against a diverse range of threats. Staying abreast of these advancements in 2024 will be essential to maintaining an environment of safety and security.