Editor's Note: Is AI Your Ozempic Moment?

Going through my dresser drawers recently, I came across an old t-shirt. It is a little tattered, but the dark grey gem has a simple phrase on the front in all-capital letters: “BEST SHAPE OF MY LIFE.”

If you are a big baseball fan like me, you can understand why I chose it. “Best Shape of my Life” is probably the most popular phrase spoken during spring training, and time has proven it means absolutely nothing to the chances of success for any player who utters it. So it’s kind of ironic. Just my style.

At first, I wore that shirt to ballgames and to buddies’ houses to watch games. It always got a smirk or a laugh, or a comment. Later on, probably 2 or 3 years ago, after I had gained my fair share of pounds, I wore it for the double irony. I was easily in the worst shape of my life.

Extremely overweight for my size, I decided I needed to make a change. I went to the doctor and got help in the form of medication. And a year or so later, I’m close to my high school playing weight.

I often run into friends at the store or a restaurant whom I haven't seen since my dramatic transformation, and almost to a tee, each one says something like: “Wow, you look great! Ozempic?” Hey, I’m not ashamed. I tell them straight out: Hell yes.

But there’s obviously more to it. I may be taking medication, but it still means being disciplined. It means passing on dessert. It means eating less. It means calisthenics, parking my car in the back of the lot for the extra steps, and getting out of my office chair now and then.

This issue is chock-full of the security industry’s equivalent of weight loss medication: AI technology. It’s not much of an exaggeration that every week you get new AI-powered security gadgets to play with, some of which solve real problems, others that save you time, and others that – let’s face it – are AI for the sake of AI.

I remember about a year ago, when Axis announced a partnership with Microsoft to add generative AI-powered natural language searches to video surveillance images. Fast-forward less than 12 months, and there are five or six examples of similar tech in the GSX show preview alone! Natural language video search has become table stakes in the industry.

The point is, if you need AI to solve a problem – whether for a customer or for your own business – you should absolutely use it, just like I did with the medication. The caveat is that you need to put in the work. Simply choosing an AI solution and moving on means bypassing the workouts, meal management, and everything else that goes into a radical transformation.

So accept the technology help, and accept the responsibilities that come with it. And then own it – tell everyone how much it has helped you. If Claude helped you write that API code, tell your customer. If ChatGPT just saved your business money, tell the CFO.

In the end, the goal is for your business to be in the BEST SHAPE OF ITS LIFE…without the irony.