11 questions to ask your vendors at ISC West 2025

Artificial intelligence continues transforming nearly every aspect of the security industry, driven by companies investing heavily in AI-enabled products. Security and building management systems predominantly employ narrow AI, known for its reliability and low error rates compared to general or generative AI. However, increasing connectivity and computing power elevate the cybersecurity risks, making Zero Trust architectures essential.

Leading companies like Ambient AI (#22109), Allied Universal Services (#27099), Brivo (#20031), Cobalt AI (#9123), Eagle Eye Networks (#20037), Milestone Systems (18053) — which adopted the ethical G7 Code of Conduct for AI — and others continue to expand their AI capabilities. (The numbers in parentheses indicate company booth numbers at ISC West 2025.)

Surprising AI Boost to Security Guarding Performance

I’m highlighting a surprising AI success story (detailed here) to sharpen your focus on customer value during the AI-rich ISC West environment.

In over 25 years of conducting large-site physical security risk assessments, I've typically found in-house teams scoring average maturity, while contracted security forces rank lower. However, a recent assessment revealed something remarkable: the site’s in-house security team rated average, but the contracted security force achieved the highest maturity rating.

A root-cause analysis attributed this exceptional performance to excellent personnel and the AI-enabled security management platform Heliaus by Allied Universal. Notably, the team had adopted Heliaus purely for operational benefits; they were unaware of its underlying AI capabilities. Several other Heliaus users similarly expressed high satisfaction without knowing AI was involved—a reminder that value, rather than technical “coolness” or complexity, should be our primary focus.

More than curious, I conducted a root-cause analysis of why the contracted security force performed so well. The answer was twofold: (a) excellent personnel and (b) an AI-enabled security force management application called Heliaus from Allied Universal. Interestingly, the security team was unaware that Heliaus used AI; their decision to adopt the platform was driven purely by its evident operational benefits.

The True Value of AI

While many AI-driven video analytics consistently achieve over 95% accuracy, their true value lies in the tangible outcomes they deliver for customers. Properly applied AI can significantly enhance existing security systems. With this in mind, consider these key questions when interacting with vendors:

Questions to Ask

Once again, this numbered list is a list of question topics, and some of the numbered entries have more than one question.

1.      AI TIME-TO-VALUE. How quickly does your AI-enabled product achieve full operational effectiveness? What are the timelines for AI training and learning?

2.      FORCE MULTIPLIER EFFECTS. How does your solution enhance existing security personnel and systems, in both routine operations and rare emergencies?

3.      CASE STUDY EXAMPLES. Prepare to clearly describe your current state security profile and improvement goals to vendors, and ask how their products specifically address your scenarios. Request relevant case studies to discuss in depth.

4.      PRIVACY AND DATA GOVERNANCE. What support do your products provide for GDPR and other privacy compliance? Can your systems automatically anonymize Personally Identifiable Information (PII)? Privacy and data governance importance continues to rise due to increased non-security data generation by security analytics and AI-based computer vision. Ensure vendors demonstrate their privacy features clearly, explaining configuration requirements and associated data management processes

5.      SECURITY OPERATIONS IMPROVEMENT. Before the show, identify areas you want to improve regarding their security effectiveness and operational efficiency. Ask vendors: How can their solutions specifically address these issues? Which additional data can they provide that might benefit overall facility management?

6.      CLOUD CHARACTERISTICS. Specifically, how does your cloud offering leverage the six key characteristics of cloud computing? Surprisingly, many cloud solution providers can't fully articulate this or provide documentation on it. Brivo and Eagle Eye Networks can.

7.      RISK SCENARIOS. What specific risk scenarios do your new features address? Vendors should clearly illustrate how their latest improvements change security operations outcomes. Ambient AI has taken the lead in this regard, as their AI computer vision capabilities are threat-signature based, and the number of threat signatures keeps increasing.  

8.      OPEN PLATFORM. Does your platform feature a publicly available Open API? AI is now making integration capabilities the secondmost important physical security technology capability, next to AI. Think, “smart spaces” and “smart buildings.” See the Brivo 2024 Global Security Trends report. Some physical security system platforms are more “open” others, and some APIs are more mature than others, so request practical integration examples based on the API. SoloInsight’s CloudGate platform (8101) supports an amazing array of integrations across multiple brands of security systems.  

9.      DIGITAL CERTIFICATES. Do your products support customer-provided digital certificates? How efficiently is certificate management handled, especially at scale? An increasing number of end-user organizations require encryption and system device authentication to utilize customer-provided digital certificates.

10.  ZERO TRUST ARCHITECTURE. How does your system support and integrate Zero Trust principles?

11.  BODY WORN TECHNOLOGY. How can we pilot your body-worn technology to assess operational impact, complexity, privacy compliance, data management, and maintenance? Clarify capabilities for live streaming versus recording, data sharing processes, and compatibility with both cloud and on-premises VMS systems.