To attend Securing New Ground is to get an insider’s look at the microcosm of the whole security industry — from vendors and solutions providers, to security integrators, end users, M&A and financial experts — all in the space of a day and a half. This year’s event, held October 8-9 in New York City, featured the same winning formula as past SNG programs: a collection of speakers and panelists from every corner of the security industry talking about trends, issues and what the security industry is doing right or could do better.

Founded in 1996 by Sandra Jones and now presented by the Security Industry Association, the event is billed as and has come to be known as the industry’s premier security executive conference.

Here are some highlights of some of the top issues and concerns discussed at the conference:

Artificial Intelligence

Not surprisingly, this year’s SNG featured a lot of content around AI. The 2024 SIA Megatrends Report named the four top megatrends as different aspects of AI, and SIA expects it to feature near the top in the next report due out next month after it collects responses from the SIA 2025 Megatrends Survey. SNG included a discussion on what the organization anticipates might be the next step in the AI evolution for security — platform aggregation, or using security analytics for a series of non-security applications to holistically view all the applications and improve business processes. 

Many other panelists also touched on the ultimate reason and use cases for security systems and platforms.

“AI is one side of it but you have to build the other end,” said Tom Cook, executive vice president of sales and operations at Hanwha Vision in the panel, “The Vice Presidential Debate: Video Sector Market Dynamics,” alongside Axis Communications vice president, Americas, Fredrik Nilsson. “AI is allowing us to separate it to point, but if  you don’t have that analytic dashboard or search engine, what good is it? It’s important when we talk to practitioners and integrators to educate them that we are not just selling a camera with AI. What is the customer going to see? We can give a customer the best product out there but if they don’t know how to use it, what good is it? It’s about driving value and improving solutions, whether that is hardware or software or both.”

Nilsson emphasized the tremendous opportunity AI presents to the industry. “The market has moved more towards native analytics, but with an open platform for applications outside of security.” Nilsson also commented on the impact AI could have on the security industry in terms of labor saving. “Eighty percent of the spend is manual labor,” he said. “In most industries it is more like 50 percent.”

Filip Kaliszan, CEO of Verkada also touched on this point in a one-on-one executive interview. 

“I am personally extremely excited about large language and vision models,” he said. “We call it AI, but we are approaching the point when computers can understand everything that is going on, which will move video security from reactive to proactive. Right now only the highest-end customers can afford to live monitor their video. But I think we will see it scale and save a lot of time for security teams. They will be able to shift focus to, ‘What are the new things we can do? Instead of a person watching video, what else can we use those resources for?’ AI will have a very profound impact on that.”

On day two, Steve Jones, CEO of Allied Universal, brought that concept into focus in a real way, discussing how his company’s use of security guards is actually ramping up, despite the increase of security technology and automation of tasks, particularly in light of the challenges faced by police departments and their inability or unwillingness to respond to non-violent crime or unverified events.

“Five to 10 years ago, I would have said the security guarding industry would continue to slow down, but today I have a different view,” Jones said. “It is truly about the combination of technology and manpower, because someone has to respond. Local law enforcement can’t respond. Downtown Los Angeles has eight police cars. They are not responding if someone tries to take your purse. Who is going to help? Our security officers are on the front lines more than ever before. We have employees being put in situations they were never trained for.”

Not only is AI potentially helping his security officers on the job, but Jones also pointed out how Allied Universal is using AI for its internal resources, including the need to hire up to 70,000 new employees a week, worldwide. “We took [AI] and used it to help us sort through applications.” Jones also shared a way his company is using AI for scheduling, using an app they developed called LISA (Live Interactive Scheduling Assistant.). “It’s an ‘Uber-like’ app based on AI where we take all the mundane and manual tasks and automate those. It is now in a mass rollout phase. It is a game changer for the industry.”

Another popular panel that touched on AI was an interview with i-PRO CEO Masato Nakao and Genetec CEO Pierre Racz. 

Racz can always be counted on to share his well-known opinions on the term “AI,” which he refers to as “absolute ignorance.” Racz added, “People have started to use the term AI to describe work that has been botched and not very well done. I don’t object to the technology at all. We have been using deep learning since 2012. I really object to the term artificial intelligence.” 

Whatever you call it, Nakao noted, “It is a driving force of the industry, at least for us. … I think AI should be the differentiator of cloud services or VMS of the future. The quality of the analytics to create value should be a differentiator in the future. In the past, AI was mainly used for post-event analysis, but now it is being used more in proactive analytics to prevent problems or crimes. We would like to move in that direction. The key should be the ethical use of AI and the accuracy of AI. That is the key for the future.”

Cloud & Mobile

AI was not the only technology trend on the minds of SNG presenters. Another big topic was cloud and RMR-based solutions. 

Hanwha Vision’s Cook addressed this topic head-on, noting, “Customers see companies with VSaaS models out there and they are asking the leaders in the industry to come out with similar or better products.” But, he added, the term “cloud” itself is problematic. “This term scares half the people. It is a horrible term. People don’t understand the difference between cloud-managed, cloud storage, etc. “It’s up to us to educate and make it easier for integrators to sell. We are all learning a new segment of the market.”

Cook predicted it would take up to 20 years for cloud to fully overtake on-prem video solutions. But that didn’t take away from its importance in today’s market. 

Axis Communications’ Nilsson added, “It’s important to think about why we want to go to cloud, such as the simplicity to acquire, install, maintain and use. Everyone wants to call everything cloud all of a sudden. What is really cloud? We do have a challenge in our industry, especially in video. Each camera generates a lot of data and most is recording locally. Who is cloud good for? A lot of educational institutions and retail are leaning toward cloud. But some industries are not allowed to use it, such as utilities. We have to remember who it is good for and who it is not.”

The desire to offer more RMR-based solutions was also expressed in a discussion on the future of mobile credentials.

“I don’t think there is a faster growing part of the physical access control industry,” said Martin Huddart, senior vice president and head of physical access control solutions for HID during the discussion. “There is not a prediction that physical credentials will die, but it is a dynamic and fast growing part of the market.” 

The reasons are similar to the prediction on VSaaS models on the video side. 

The channel is keen to be involved in mobile credentials but it is a different model for them, Huddart said. “Manufacturers haven’t always done a great job of creating these digital RMR products. We are learning that as a historically hardware manufacturer. This is an integration opportunity: the latest, different type of integration that security integrators can take advantage of.”

And more importantly, customers are asking for it, he added. “In our experience, once you have gone mobile and experienced the convenience, you won’t go back as a user. One interesting trend we are noting is we typically sell more licenses than people use. But now we are seeing that activation rate is skyrocketing. We are seeing a lot of unused licenses from the past now being adopted. What that means is people are really using it.”

Cybersecurity & Convergence With Physical Security

No discussion on cloud and AI would be complete without also touching on the cybersecurity aspects of these and other security technology trends. 

For example, Nilsson pointed out the irony that many customers who don’t want to move to cloud say it is due to cybersecurity concerns, while an equal number who do move to cloud cite the exact same reason.

Genetec’s Racz said, “Fighting entropy is everybody’s business, and that applies to cybersecurity. The internet today is an open sewer and it is our responsibility  to make sure we keep our little cyberspace free of these pathogens. Our responsibility is to be competent engineers and not put in the devices that are easily taken over. I’m advocating that the end user should insist on having integrators and providers that have adequate levels of cyber insurance.” 

Nakao of i-PRO agreed, adding, “We must work together. VMS, cloud service providers, manufacturers and integrators. If the device is not secure, the entire system is not secure. For us it is simple; we must make a camera that is difficult to hack. We don’t hesitate to spend money on that. We carefully choose the trusted platform module. Then to connect out the devices to the system, we must cooperate with each other.”

Some of the most well-received sessions at SNG revolved around the voice of the end user, from the opening day session featuring panelists from SIA’s recently created member category, SPARC (Security Practitioners Advancing Real Conversations), to a panel on day two with representatives from Palo Alto Networks and Zoom on how the digital transformation will reinvent corporate security operations.

The latter panel proved to be a capstone on many of the themes of the event before the final two sessions that turned to economic and M&A conditions. And they didn’t pull any punches.

Nathan Mills, head of global security (CSO physical) for Zoom, posed a challenge to everyone in the room. “We are an AI-focused company at Zoom. We leverage AI to more effectively manage risk for the company. … From my perspective from the participant side, the challenge I face is … if I think about all my relationships as vendor relationships, that’s worthless to me. It has got to be a partner relationship. But that is not what I see in practice.

“The people I recognize at these events are all salespeople. How do we have those relationships with the people that are really pushing the needle forward that helps people like me to manage risk for my company?”

Eli Bloomstein, director, technical security programs, Palo Alto Networks, also mentioned the importance of AI to his company. “The buzzword has been around from five to 10 years, but there is a lot of distilling you need to do when selecting a platform. AI, as Pierre (Racz) said, is really not that intelligent. You can use it, but you have to use it with a grain of salt.”

The Holy Grail for users like these two and others, they said, is making all the data that security systems are capable of gathering, seamless, actionable and actually useful to them.

“Every organization will say they are data-driven, but what does that actually mean? Most are woefully inadequate in the amount of data they can actually use,” Bloomstein said. “I think the lack of support from manufactures is really affecting the amount of data we can extract.”

Mills added, “When I talk about enabling a business, what we are still scratching the surface on is using the data we have for security uses, for other business purposes.” 

Wrapping Up

As it has for the past two years, and — if the organizers and attendees have anything to say about it — will continue for many years to come, the final Keynote spot went to Nasdaq Chief Economist Phil Mackintosh. This is always an extremely popular talk for a reason. He is really good at distilling what is going on with the economy and the markets, and relating it to the security industry’s role in that. Most of what he had to say this year was positive news.

“This year no one is really talking about recession,” he told attendees. “We are really a lot stronger than most of the developed world.”

Mackintosh mentioned the strength of the job market, with layoffs at close to 20 year lows — something the security industry is definitely feeling in the form of talent wars. 

“Where we are now is pretty close to more normal,” Mackintosh said. And interest rates are also coming down, with the expectation of a 1 point total cut by the end of the year, he said.

However, he did note that consumer credit card debt is increasing, putting a question mark on how long the positive economy can continue, with its reliance on consumer spending to fuel it. 

When it comes to the markets, Mackintosh touched specifically on the tech industry. The Mag 7 stocks (Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Google, Amazon, Meta and Tesla) are generally doing well, and he noted, “All are involved in or exposed to this AI trade pretty directly.”

He also pointed to one index that is doing even better than Nasdaq: The Philly Semiconductor. “That is a trend we are seeing in terms of earnings growth coming from the AI platforms.”

Following this, the last session of the event, as is always the case, was on M&A insights, where John Mack III, executive vice president, Imperial Capital, noted, “M&A is up compared to 2023, but down overall relative to 2021.”

Part of this is due to the high interest rates, he explained. But even as they come down, as Mackintosh predicted they will continue to do, Mack left attendees with this word of advice: “They won’t go back to the crazy low interest rates of before, so people need to build businesses with that in mind.”

His prediction for the 2025 markets? “More normalized; people have gotten used to the idea that the cost of debt is going to be higher.”

Finally, he touched on the main themes of the conference and their relation M&A. “Cloud and SaaS in public markets are still trading at very high levels. Cyber is still trading at high multiples. The four top megatrends are all AI-related and there is no question that will be showing up in valuations. People want to take advantage of AI to lower costs and that is expanding to security.”

Alper Cetingok, managing director, head of diversified industrials, Raymond James, added that the security industry business models, no matter what happens in the economy, are traditionally resilient, concluding, “I’m very bullish on the market.”