“The past year has seen the normally conservative security industry pivot to be at the forefront of technology used to mitigate COVID-19 risks. The implementation of new use cases such as occupancy management, automated visitor management and touchless access control have increased in demand – which in turn has increased the need for interoperability as businesses seek best of breed solutions. Enabling these use cases are solutions that, while not new to the security industry, have been driving the use of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud storage and the Internet of Things (IoT), integral to the delivery of customised applications for pandemic related health, safety and security issues.
With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that the biggest security trends we anticipate seeing throughout 2021 will be IoT and AI. As the growth of IoT connected devices and ecosystems continues to rise and the demand for integrations of smart applications accelerates, these technologies, once novel to the security industry, are becoming more mainstream. This increased focus is leading to more investment in analytics, as organisations search for solutions to adapt to the new way of life, while reopening economies and rebooting infrastructure. While much of this year is still full of uncertainty, we are confident the industry will continue to see growth and demand for these trends.”