2025 Security Industry Predictions: Caleb Augustin, Head of Channel, Verkada
Augustin, the head of channels for the Americas for Verkada, shares his thoughts on what’s coming in the security industry.
Photo courtesy of Verkada
We continue the 2025 Security Industry Predictions series with prognostications from of Caleb Augustin, head of channel, Americas, at Verkada.
Security Sales & Integration: Without getting into any specific vendors or branded solutions, what technology category or solution area do you see as 2025’s ripest, most profitable growth opportunity for security dealers, installers and integrators? Explain your reasoning.
Caleb Augustin: Cloud-based security solutions are undoubtedly transforming the way organizations protect their people and places.
For end users, they’re centralizing device management under one common view, making it easy to scale across sites, and enabling automatic software updates that ultimately safeguard against evolving threats. For channel partners, these advantages aren’t just creating better experiences for their customers, they are also unlocking new growth opportunities at scale.
One of the biggest unlocks comes from time saved. Cloud-based solutions are often easier to set up and easier to troubleshoot (from anywhere), reducing the time that partners spend on manual configurations and on-site troubleshooting. This frees up time to focus on growing their business, building stronger customer relationships, and offering additional value-added services that drive long-term success.
SSI: These days, we’re all hearing a lot about the cloud migration, AI/machine learning, crime deterrence vs. crime reactiveness, etc. Which of these “hot topics” do you think is overplayed? Which ones do you think will truly transform the practice of security integration in the coming years?
Augustin: Artificial intelligence isn’t just a buzzword; it’s already transforming security in ways that were hard to imagine just a few years ago.
From AI-powered alerts that can monitor and flag specific behavior to search tools that let users use natural language like “person wearing a red baseball hat last Tuesday” to find relevant footage in seconds, we’re seeing the real-world impact of AI in physical security today.
What’s exciting is that we’re still at the beginning of this transformation. As this technology evolves and the use cases expand beyond security and into broader business operations, channel partners will have even more opportunities to deliver powerful, predictive, and proactive solutions to their customers.
SSI: What’s getting better about the security industry these days? What seems to be getting worse and worse?
Augustin: One positive trend I’m seeing across the security industry is how much easier it’s becoming to integrate systems. Cloud-based physical security platforms are making security solutions more open and flexible, allowing organizations to connect their security devices with other tools and sources of data.
Some of the ways I’ve seen organizations use integrations to get more value from their security solutions include integrations with evidence collection tools to quickly and seamlessly export video archives or other data logs, or even connecting point-of-sale systems with video footage to monitor transactions and reduce shrinkage in retail environments.
It’s exciting to see how these kinds of integrations are transforming security systems into versatile solutions that support a wider range of organizational needs.
SSI: Finish this sentence: 2025 will be remembered as the year that the security industry…
Augustin: …transitions from reactive to proactive. Advancements in cloud and AI technology are helping organizations proactively identify and prevent potential threats, shifting the focus from responding to incidents to stopping them before they happen.
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