New AI-powered systems are rapidly replacing traditional surveillance methods, offering powerful capabilities beyond simple video recording.

The market size for AI in video surveillance, valued at USD 5.74 billion in 2023, is projected to grow at a CAGR of 28.1% from 2024 to 2030. As these technologies continue to evolve and become more accessible, they're poised to redefine security standards everywhere.

This article explores what constitutes a genuine AI security solution and reviews its key advantages, including enhanced detection, proactive threat prevention, and intelligent data management. We’ll help you distinguish between marketing hype and authentic AI capabilities, and most importantly, explain why every enterprise business should have an AI security system deployed across their organization.

The Enterprise Case for AI-Powered Security

Enterprise businesses face unique security challenges that traditional camera systems fail to address adequately. These include:

• Scale and complexity: Large campuses, multiple facilities, and numerous entry points create blind spots.
• Heightened risk profiles: Higher-value assets, sensitive data, and larger workforces increase the likelihood and potential impact of security breaches.
• Regulatory compliance: Industry-specific requirements demand more sophisticated monitoring and documentation capabilities.
• Resource constraints: Security teams can't manually monitor dozens or hundreds of cameras effectively.
• Liability concerns: Failure to prevent foreseeable incidents using available technology may create legal exposure.

Traditional security cameras—even those with basic motion detection—leave critical gaps that sophisticated intruders can easily exploit. Without AI capabilities, enterprise businesses remain vulnerable to coordinated threats, insider risks, and evolving security challenges. 

How to Identify True AI Physical Security Solutions

Before looking at their benefits, it's important to understand what constitutes a genuine AI security system. In today's market, some products advertise "advanced AI" when they merely deploy basic object recognition capabilities with embedded chipsets performing simple algorithmic functions. Many video security platforms use off-the-shelf AI models, leading to standard motion, people, and vehicle detection with similar performance levels across various vendors. While these systems may brand themselves as “AI-powered,” evaluation of the AI models, features, hardware, and system architecture is critical, as they all play a crucial role in determining the type of AI an organization can leverage in its environment. 

True AI video security solutions, on the other hand, utilize proprietary AI models that adapt to new environments, continuously learning as they operate. These systems can detect activity and behavior beyond simple object recognition. For example, they can detect loitering in a specific location or a violent altercation between individuals.  

An AI video security solution can accelerate investigations with very granular AI searches. For instance, during an Amber Alert, you can search across all cameras for the past two weeks for an “adult male wearing a black shirt, blue jeans, and carrying a backpack, last seen next to a boy wearing a red shirt.” You can even include related vehicle information, such as a “white Kia with a license plate containing 785.”

True AI security systems typically require more powerful processors, such as GPUs, capable of running advanced machine learning models, with cloud connectivity for additional processing power and scalability features that basic systems with embedded chipsets don't support. When evaluating AI security systems, enterprise buyers should prioritize specific capabilities like continuous situational learning, neural network processing, and the ability to improve performance over time without manual programming. Look for a solution that is camera-agnostic, incorporates NVIDIA GPUs (the industry standard for AI video security), and utilizes on-premise video processing devices to process AI off-camera rather than directly on the camera itself.

How AI Security Can Improve Event Detection in Enterprise Environments 

Traditional security cameras simply record footage for later review, requiring human operators to monitor screens around the clock or manually search through hours of recordings to find what they need. Especially for enterprise companies with extensive facilities to monitor, this approach is impractical and can result in significant security gaps.

AI security cameras transform this paradigm by analyzing video feeds in real time, identifying and categorizing people, objects, and behaviors as they occur. This capability greatly benefits larger facilities with multiple entry points, sensitive or hazardous areas, and environments vulnerable to organized theft. 

For example, these AI systems can: 

• Recognize faces and license plates to mitigate unauthorized access
• Detect unwanted behaviors such as tailgating, someone holding a gun, or a fight breaking out
• Monitor for employee safety, such as proper PPE usage and safe operation of forklifts

Due to the operational complexity of enterprise businesses, most simply can’t afford the limitations of traditional systems.

How AI Can Unlock More Proactive Threat Response

Perhaps the most significant advantage of AI security cameras is their ability to prevent incidents rather than merely document them. Instead of waiting for something to go wrong, these systems actively monitor for unusual behavior—such as loitering in restricted areas, unauthorized access attempts, or crowd formations—and automatically alert security personnel before situations escalate.

This proactive approach transforms security cameras from passive recording devices into active prevention tools. For example, with Lumana’s AI video security system, if a person of interest gains access to a building’s entrance, the system can trigger an instant alert to security personnel and an automated response like a warning on a loudspeaker.

Using AI for Intelligent Data Storage and Filtering

Video security systems generate vast amounts of footage, traditionally requiring hours of human review to find anything meaningful. Without AI, video is stored in bulk, often requiring significant manual effort to sift through.

AI simplifies this with:

• Selective recording of relevant events
• Automated indexing and categorization of footage
• Efficient compression to save storage without compromising quality
• Smart search features that pinpoint specific incidents instantly

These innovations save time and resources while improving operational efficiency.

For instance, searching for "white vehicle at north entrance on Tuesday morning" can deliver precise results in seconds rather than requiring manual review of hours of footage.

Cost Efficiency and Accessibility

While early AI systems were prohibitively expensive, technological advancements such as hybrid-cloud infrastructure have dramatically reduced costs while delivering advanced capabilities. Enterprise businesses can now:

• Automate monitoring around the clock 
• Respond instantly to threats before they can cause damage
• Speed up investigations from hours to minutes
• Gain powerful visibility into operations like foot traffic or product output
• Analyze business data to make key operational decisions

And they can do all of these things without requiring additional labor hours. The false alarm reduction (up to 90% in some implementations) and the decreased manual monitoring requirements translate to significant operational savings, making AI security cameras increasingly cost-effective compared to traditional systems. Organizations often see a positive ROI within just a few years of implementation.

Lumana: The Leading AI Video Security Platform

Lumana’s visual intelligence platform was selected as the 2025 winner of the best new video analytics solution by the Security Industry Association. It features proprietary, continuously learning AI that adapts to each camera's unique environment, enabling the detection of specific behaviors, rather than just objects, with near-human-like perception.

With capabilities like automated monitoring that improves staff efficiency by up to 10X, real-time behavior detection with 90% fewer false alerts, smart video search technology that can scrub millions of hours of footage in seconds, and AI dashboards that convert video data into actionable insights, Lumana delivers a comprehensive security solution that combines the best from video security and AI solutions into one unified platform.

The platform operates on a hybrid-cloud architecture (combining local and cloud-based processing), with the Lumana Core replacing traditional Network Video Recorders (NVRs) and providing local AI processing for real-time alerts.

Key capabilities include:

• 24/7 automated AI monitoring for an infinite number of cameras
• Real-time activity and behavior detection with reduced false alerts
• Smart video search technology that can quickly analyze large volumes of footage to find exactly what you’re looking for
• Analytics dashboards that convert video data into actionable insights

The Future of Security Monitoring

Looking ahead, AI security camera technology continues to evolve rapidly. Emerging capabilities include:

• Enhanced behavioral analysis that can predict potential incidents before they occur
• More sophisticated object detection and tracking across multiple cameras
• Integration with autonomous security robots, drones, or other physical security systems for comprehensive coverage

As these technologies mature and become standardized, AI security cameras may become as common as smoke detectors in buildings of all types, providing an invisible but constant layer of protection. By combining the monitoring capabilities of traditional cameras with artificial intelligence, these systems offer more effective and efficient security solutions.

Maintaining competitive security capabilities will require enterprise businesses to continue investing in evolving AI technologies. Those who stay current will be better positioned to navigate the security challenges of tomorrow. 

To see why your enterprise business needs an AI security camera system, schedule a free demo of Lumana today.