Integrated solutions are becoming a baseline requirement for organizations of all sizes. Ahead, we look at how manufacturers and technology vendors are evolving their offerings to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes. Their insights reveal a landscape that has been shaped by interoperability, scalability and simplicity.

Speaking to recent efforts, Steve Burdet, manager, solutions management, Axis Communications, Chelmsford, Mass., says, “We have focused on ensuring our products can operate seamlessly across a wide range of platforms — whether at the edge, on-premises servers, in the cloud, or in hybrid environments that combine all three. We have also expanded our ability to work with a broad ecosystem of partners by using open APIs and plug-ins, while adopting widely accepted data transfer protocols such as MQTT to support flexible, real-time communication across systems.”

Burdet continues, “Within our product portfolio, we’ve made major strides in unifying video surveillance, access control, and audio solutions, all enhanced by powerful analytics. These technologies are now more tightly integrated than ever, allowing customers to manage diverse security needs through a single, streamlined platform. This unified approach not only simplifies system management but also enables faster, more informed decision-making — delivering stronger overall security outcomes.”

Charles Pitman, product marketing manager, Genetec, Montreal, says the cloud has recently enabled more integration than previously possible. “Cloud used to be very siloed, with video and access control considered separate systems,” he says. “Integration was minimal. Initially, the priority was on small deployments that offered low upfront costs and easy setup. But now, the cloud is becoming much more integrated.

“At Genetec, we’ve launched a new SaaS platform that integrates video and access control,” Pitman continues. “We’re also connecting it with other cloud-native solutions like evidence management, access and identity management, work management, intrusion systems, alarm management, intercoms, and public address. These capabilities, traditionally only available in enterprise on-prem systems, are now moving to the cloud in a unified and scalable way.”

AI’s Role in Integrated Offerings

It won’t come as a surprise that AI is the latest layer added to any offering. So how can that increase the value of an integrated offering? Jonathan Dupont, senior director, field sales North America, AMAG Technology, Hawthorne, Calif., explains how his company is using it: “Through the integration of Vaidio AI Analytics with AMAG’s Symmetry CompleteView, we deliver advanced video intelligence that helps users move beyond traditional video surveillance. Vaidio’s AI-powered features, such as object detection, facial recognition, license plate recognition, and behavioral analytics, provide actionable insights, reduce false alarms, and improve situational awareness in real time. This enables security teams to respond more quickly to potential threats and make more informed decisions.”

Dupont adds, “Looking ahead, we are exploring additional ways to leverage AI and machine learning across our product portfolio to enhance predictive analytics, system health monitoring, and proactive threat detection, with the goal of improving operational efficiency and helping our customers create safer, smarter environments.”

Burdet says Axis is also focused on expanding its AI efforts. “Artificial intelligence and machine learning are playing an increasingly important role in enhancing the performance and usability of our integrated security solutions,” he says. “Today, AI is embedded in several of our key offerings. These technologies enable users to detect, identify, and locate events or objects of interest more quickly and accurately — ultimately improving operational efficiency and situational awareness.

“Looking ahead, we are committed to expanding and evolving these capabilities,” Burdet says. “Our roadmap includes expanding object classifications and attribute detection, allowing our solutions to distinguish a broader range of activities, objects, and scenarios. We’re also focused on improving processing speed and enabling more complex search and identification capabilities, whether on the edge or across cloud-based and hybrid environments.”

William Knowles, regional sales manager, Traka, Orlando, Fla., says, “Traka utilizes machine learning algorithms to analyze patterns in access control behavior, identifying potential security breaches by detecting anomalies or suspicious activity. Looking ahead, we are committed to further expanding the role of AI in our solutions, particularly with advanced predictive analytics. Our roadmap includes not just optimizing physical asset management but also supporting cybersecurity reinforcement through machine learning-driven alerts that detect unusual digital access patterns, helping companies protect both their physical and digital assets.”

The combination of video surveillance integrated with access control and more can provide a truly intelligent solution. “We have a lot in video analytics — of course — but things that are less traditional include our person on-site likelihood indicator as part of our operator portal,” says Brian Lohse, general manager, commercial business unit, Alarm.com. “This gives an operator a simple likelihood score based on all sensor and contextual information that Alarm.com has, indicating whether there’s actually a person there.”

Lohse continues, “On the user side, we have something called unexpected activity. Any property — whether home or business — has things happening throughout the day: people coming and going, arming, disarming, opening doors, etc. The system builds a model for every property of normal activity. When something happens that’s odd, the AI detects that and notifies the customer, saying ‘this door doesn’t normally open at this time.’ It may be things they never thought to configure notifications for, and it’s wonderful because you don’t know what you don't know.”

SMB & Enterprise Integrated Needs

While small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprise customers have their own distinct integration needs, they can often look similar. Enterprises may be more focused on deeper, real-time connections between access, video, and cybersecurity, while SMBs want simplicity and scalability — but that’s not to say that they don’t value each of these elements. “One of the big challenges for SMB customers is that in most cases, they already have some form of pre-existing system,” Lohse says. “It’s certainly desirable to have all systems on one app working together, but they might already have cameras, an alarm panel on the wall, a fire panel. Whether they’re willing to invest in ripping all that out and replacing it to get an integrated experience is a real barrier.”

Lohse continues, “We’ve invested heavily in supporting a huge array of takeover or upgrade options. For customers with existing cameras, we now integrate with them so you can turn them into Alarm.com integrated cameras. We have a universal fire communicator, alarm modules that work with a wide range of panels, and even with access control if you have existing readers and credentials — all of those can be made to work with the platform.

“Another foundational issue is that SMB customers often don’t know to ask for systems to be unified,” Lohse says. “For a long time, it’s been a product-based business, not a service-based business. In their minds, the video system is totally independent from the alarm system, which is totally independent from the access system. Often not only are the systems separate, but they’d call different companies to install them. There’s a big customer education gap, which represents a big opportunity. Customers probably won’t call saying, ‘I want all these systems to work together,’ because they haven’t thought about the benefits or that it’s even possible. We spend a lot of time helping our partners tell the story to customers about how these can all work together and illustrating use cases of why having them work together will help.”

AMAG’s Dupont adds, “SMBs face unique challenges when adopting integrated security systems, including limited budgets, minimal in-house security expertise, and the need for simple, scalable solutions. They require systems that are easy to deploy, manage, and expand as their business grows, without the complexity or cost of enterprise platforms. Compatibility with existing infrastructure, built-in cybersecurity, and support for compliance requirements are also key concerns.”

Speaking to how Axis views the SMB customers challenges — and what the company does to help overcome them, Burdet says, “One of the most common challenges for businesses of all sizes is the complexity of ensuring that multiple products and providers work together seamlessly to deliver an easy, positive experience — something that can be especially difficult for organizations with limited IT resources and staff.

“To address this, we take a two-fold approach,” Burdet says. “For solutions built entirely with Axis products, we prioritize a unified platform where video, audio, access control, and analytics are developed to work together natively. This deep level of integration ensures a more intuitive user experience, faster deployment, and fewer technical complications — making enterprise-grade functionality more accessible for SMBs.”

Burdet continues, “When it comes to third-party integrations, we focus on building strong partnerships and aligning technologies proactively, rather than reacting only when customers raise compatibility issues. We also provide a stable foundation for integration through open, well-documented APIs. This minimizes complexity across different versions and platforms, helping SMBs adopt best-fit solutions without the burden of custom integration work. Our goal is to reduce friction and make advanced security solutions easier to adopt, manage, and scale — so SMBs can focus on running their businesses with confidence.”

While many of these considerations apply to the enterprise user, too, Dupont says of this type of customer specifically, “Enterprise customers are demanding deeply integrated security platforms that unify access control, video surveillance, and cybersecurity into a single, intelligent system. They expect real-time correlation between access events and video, supported by AI analytics for faster threat detection and incident response. Features like object recognition, facial matching, and behavioral analytics help reduce false alarms and improve situational awareness. Cybersecurity is critical; enterprises require encrypted communication (e.g., OSDP), secure device authentication, hardened firmware, and regular software updates to mitigate cyber risks. Many are also moving toward hybrid deployments that balance cloud flexibility with on-prem security standards.”

Ramesh Songukrishnasamy, senior vice president and chief technology officer, HID, adds, “These enterprise customers know that security infrastructures are no longer isolated; they are complex ecosystems that include access control, video surveillance, identity platforms, building management systems, IoT sensors and cloud services, among others. Integrating these ecosystems is vital. This requires interoperability and a shifting to open architectures that enable gradual upgrades, modular deployments and long-term scalability without starting over every few years.

“Edge computing is becoming integral to accomplishing this as part of an open, future-ready strategy of which controllers are a key element,” Songukrishnasamy continues. “Pushing processing capabilities close to the access point enables third-party applications to run directly on controllers, tightly integrating them with local sensors, readers and devices while maintaining compatibility with broader cloud and enterprise systems. The decentralization of this approach also reinforces both security and flexibility.”