How AI in Video Surveillance is Redefining What Cameras Can Do
Your video surveillance cameras are already watching. Now help them think and unlock new opportunities for resellers with AI.
The generative artificial intelligence breakthrough that transformed how we interact with computers is now revolutionizing security video surveillance, revealing that cameras can do more than follow instructions. They can interpret and comprehend visual context.
The improvements are not incremental; it’s a complete reimagining of what video surveillance cameras can accomplish for your clients.
The Billion-Dollar Visual Intelligence Revolution
To achieve this shift, large language models (LLMs) underwent extensive training in image recognition and understanding, an investment of billions of dollars. The result? Security video surveillance integrated with modern AI can deliver video recognition capabilities that far surpass the performance of traditional video analytics. This is opening up some pretty amazing stuff with the potential to transform how integrators work with clients.
The advantage for resellers is having advanced technology that is simple to deploy in real-world scenarios and intuitive for end users so partners can introduce AI confidently and accelerate adoption.
Cloud + AI: The Perfect Video Surveillance Convergence
The future lies in the synergy between AI and cloud video surveillance. A well-architected cloud platform can aggregate the power of multiple LLMs, using best practices to deploy and orchestrate actions based on custom and curated video AI agents.
Cloud systems eliminate dependencies on video processing at the location, providing fast, effective storage and powerful AI analysis with lower maintenance costs. Intelligence now operates within both the smart camera at the edge and the AI in the cloud, allowing for advanced video surveillance that can be much more proactive and preventive.
Cloud here is the killer app. This shift gives end users access to easy-to-use AI and also improves the reseller’s economics by reducing deployment time and service overhead. This also opens new recurring-revenue opportunities by being able to offer clients smarter, more proactive supervision capabilities.
Paradigm Shift: Video Surveillance to AI Supervision
Cloud and AI technologies are transforming video surveillance into intelligent supervision, delivering better protection for people, facilities and assets while simultaneously providing compliance. For instance, liability prevention can be achieved both through preventive alerts and through automated documentation.
This is a big win for resellers, opening the door to AI upgrades for existing clients, easier sales to new projects, expansion into multi-site customers requesting stronger centralized management than any on-prem system can provide. It boosts security by moving from recording to prevention and unlocks new opportunities in compliance, liability reduction, workflow improvements and AI-powered supervision.
AI supervision amplifies managerial and security oversight. These intelligent systems act as tireless assistants that understand context, follow rules and respond instantly to both safety and security concerns. In logistics, they flag unsafe operations before accidents occur. In healthcare, they can detect falls and risks and confirm hygiene compliance. In retail, they identify suspicious behavior while improving customer flow and service.
The result is continuous awareness. It provides an additional layer of protection that safeguards people and property, ensures compliance and strengthens both safety and security while empowering human managers to focus on leadership.
The Accessibility Breakthrough
Cloud-based AI video/camera surveillance systems can help your clients not only address security and safety but also tackle operational challenges across the board. This can ensure safe practices, including PPE usage, upholding cleanliness standards, preventing trip risks, providing early detection of fire and spills, fall detection, workflow monitoring, productivity analysis, etc. This type of next-generation AI-based video can also identify high-performing employees for recognition, detect policy violations, simplify HR documentation, loss prevention and compliance monitoring—the list continues to grow as new AI agents are developed.
This is where the “supervision” concept becomes tangible. It’s not about watching for security threats anymore. Intelligent operational oversights are gained across businesses – without additional staff time.
An Economic Case for Why Now Makes Perfect Sense
When considering costs, AI-powered platforms have become increasingly more affordable thanks to ease of implementation. Also, since IT service providers often offer AI functionality with their camera systems, this has helped to create a pricing model that makes cloud-based AI supervision accessible to businesses of every size, from multi-location enterprises to small businesses.
The total cost of ownership often reveals a surprising truth: cloud subscriptions frequently cost less than maintaining aging, on-premise, systems when factoring in server maintenance, power, VMS (Video Management System) licensing and IT overhead. The economic advantages are increasingly compelling.
According to market research firm Infosys, “Early cloud was perceived as a tool for allowing companies to rapidly scale, modern cloud enables companies to rapidly innovate, which is what has been achieved with next generation video surveillance and supervision platforms.” Infosys’ Cloud Radar findings show that growth and profitability correlate to superior enterprise cloud adoption and orchestration.
A Reimagined Deployment via Plug and View
Across industries, a clear trend is emerging: the migration from local, hardware-heavy deployments to cloud-direct, plug-and-view architectures. This shift parallels what happened when software moved from desktop installations to cloud services. It allows integrators and resellers to deploy systems in hours instead of weeks, with less on-site configuration labor and faster ROI realization compared to traditional setups.
The beauty of plug-and-play deployment is its simplicity. Cameras can be pre-provisioned and securely connected to the cloud; then, they instantly become manageable from anywhere. This not only reduces engineering time but also opens participation to smaller integrators who can now compete effectively without maintaining complex server infrastructure.
By contrast, when your clients hold on to legacy systems, they remain tied to costly server maintenance, manual updates and rigid replacement cycles.
Plug-and-view supervision is not just a technical innovation but also a strategic differentiator defining how fast your clients can adapt, improve safety and leverage intelligence across their entire operation.
The Competitive Advantage Window
The implications of AI-powered video supervision extend beyond security, democratizing video access and delivering operational insights to managers, operations staff and executives. This allows for a proactive approach that is far more beneficial than the traditional reactive approach. Business will become more productive relying on business intelligence and not just security footage. There needs to be a shift in the mindset in how to derive additional value from AI surveillance supervisory platforms. For instance, while competitors review yesterday’s footage, early adopters are preventing today’s incidents and optimizing efficiency.
Perhaps most importantly, cloud-based AI platforms represent future-proof investments. As the technology advances, cloud platforms can immediately deliver new capabilities to existing systems, unlike on-premise solutions which upon installation have a shelf life or require expensive replacement cycles. The application of intelligent AI within existing networks presents an opportunity to build upon this infrastructure in order to expand the capabilities of any business.
Robert Messer is president of IPTECHVIEW.
