Our 2026 security industry predictions series enters the home stretch with Freddy Kuo, chairman at Luminys. He looks ahead to some of the biggest potential development in the sector in the next 12 months or more. Kuo shared his 2025 security industry reflections in a post last month.
Freddy Kuo 2026 Security Industry Predictions
Read on to check out Freddy Kuo’s 2026 security industry predictions. We’ll have more predictions from others among the brightest minds in the security industry throughout the month.
Security Sales & Integration: What technology category or solution area do you see as 2026’s ripest, most profitable growth opportunity for security dealers, installers and integrators? Explain your reasoning.
Freddy Kuo: The most immediate opportunity is context-aware video intelligence at the edge and supported by cloud learning. Customers want systems that reduce monitoring workload, automate repeatable tasks and provide early warnings tied to specific key performance indicators (KPIs) such as uptime, throughput or risk reduction.
Solutions that combine reliable low-light performance, on-device inference and consistent analytics across fleets will see strong demand. Integrators who can deliver systems that “understand” rather than simply detect motion will create recurring, measurable value.
SSI: Which emerging security technologies do you think are overplayed? Which ones do you think will truly transform the practice of security integration in the coming years?
Kuo: Overplayed technologies are the “do-everything artificial intelligence agents” promising full autonomy without regard for real-world constraints. They often underdeliver because they require high-touch engineering, lack environmental adaptability or fail to maintain context continuity across sites.
Technologies that will transform integration will be those that improve consistency and “explainability.” AI models fall under this category as long as they interpret context, adjust to environmental changes and provide clear explanation trails when performance drifts. These systems reduce service calls, improve trust and enable operational insights beyond security.
SSI: What’s getting better about the security industry these days? What seems to be getting worse?
Kuo: Getting better: Adoption of outcome-focused AI. Dealers and integrators are increasingly framing systems around quantifiable business goals such as investigation time, uptime or operating cost.
Getting worse: Alert fatigue and model drift. As analytics proliferate, inconsistent tuning and fragmented deployments create noise. Poorly maintained AI becomes a liability rather than driving value.
SSI: What’s liable to catch some security industry dealers, installers and integrators off guard in the coming year?
Kuo: The pace at which customers will expect fleet-wide consistency. It won’t be enough to install hardware that works “most of the time.” Organizations will expect uniform performance across dozens or hundreds of sites, regardless of lighting, bandwidth or environmental variation. This will increase the pressure to adopt systems that adapt automatically and maintain accuracy without manual retuning.
SSI: What’s the single most pressing challenge that professionals in the security industry must tackle right now? And how would you suggest tackling it?
Kuo: The biggest challenge is bridging security data into operational workflows. Many organizations still treat video as an isolated tool, which limits its value. By designing backward from outcomes (uptime, throughput, risk reduction) integrators can identify specific workflows where video intelligence can reduce friction. Small, targeted wins will build confidence and support wider adoption.
SSI: Finish this sentence: 2026 will be remembered as the year that the security industry…
Kuo: … realized that value comes from measurable improvements, not more features — and shifted toward systems designed around KPIs, consistency and real-world reliability.
Click here to check out all the entries in our 2026 security industry predictions series!
