NEW YORK — The physical and electronic security industry is at a crossroads, defined by the unflagging rise of software and the indispensability of hardware to capture real-world data for artificial intelligence, along with the fundamental reshaping of traditional channel-based selling. That was the consensus that seemed to emerge during the Security Megatrends panel this morning at Securing New Ground, an executive conference that the Security Industry Association (SIA) presents each year.
This year’s Security Megatrends panelists included Steve Van Till, president and CEO, Brivo; Devin Love, director, product management, Allegion; Tara Dunning, vice president, converging technology, global sales and strategy, Wesco; and Eric Yunag, executive vice president, products and services, Convergint.
Industry in Transformation: Security Megatrends Panel at Securing New Ground
Together, the panelists presented a series of interconnected “megatrends” that paint a picture of a security industry undergoing significant transformation, grappling with both potential threats and unprecedented opportunities.
The discussion kicked off with opening remarks from Van Till, who described an “invisible megatrend” — a megatrend that’s right in front of us but that we might not be paying attention to. He was referring to software now capturing a much bigger share of the “security product wallet” than it used to.
Van Till presented data projecting that software will constitute about 45% of total product revenue by 2030. (This figure doesn’t include integrator revenue.) This shift, he argued, has massive implications for where profit margins and cash flow will soon center themselves. He challenged the industry, particularly integrators, to adapt quickly.
“Our integrators should all take that to heart because they are the ones who need to follow this trend in order to participate in that major field of growth,” urged Van Till.
Security Megatrends: New Skill Sets Needed
This transition demands a new skill set, as many frontline salespeople still seem to be more comfortable selling tangible hardware than selling software solutions. “And so,” Van Till said, “in order to enjoy this, our integrators need to be able to have salespeople that are comfortable selling software.”
This imperative is even stronger in light of data about new company creation in the security category. According to Van Till, most of the new companies in our industry are coming out as software companies or majority-software companies.
“We need to stop calling ourselves manufacturers and call ourselves security technology providers,” Van Till exhorted. This difference in nomenclature, he said, would make clear that our industry no longer centers itself on hardware manufacture and distribution.
However, just as the industry comes around to software centricity, AI introduces a fresh twist. Van Till reported that 55% of the companies that exhibited at this year’s ISC West claimed to be using AI in their products. Then, he highlighted a stark quote from Bessemer Venture Partners: “AI is a mass extinction event for software.”
He noted how AI is already capable of replicating the capabilities of complex software platforms (e.g., Slack) in a tiny fraction of the time that it took to build them. So, how worried should our industry be?
Van Till said that the security industry is more protected than most, given the “protective moats” we have — namely, hardware as our anchor, the expertise of integrators and the art form of multi-product integration. Nevertheless, he cautioned against complacency.
Security Megatrends: A Renaissance of Hardware?
Van Till closed by alluding to the rise of NVIDIA, a hardware company, as a stock market behemoth. This, he conceded, might undergird a “renaissance of hardware” counternarrative to weigh against his own software-focused analysis.
Building on that point, Devin Love of Allegion championed the renewed importance of hardware in the age of AI. He argued that the AI “brain” has an insatiable appetite to interact with the real, physical world. Using a “blood-brain barrier” analogy, Love described hardware as the mechanism to capture the real-world data and interaction that AI systems need but cannot generate on their own. The challenge, according to Love, is to bridge that gap.
“Ultimately, again, it comes back to how do we traverse that blood-brain barrier?” Love argued. “That means we need to drive to clear, understood and available hardware APIs.” What’s more, hardware devices that traverse the “blood-brain barrier” deliver higher value, which will result in greater profitability and increased client satisfaction.
Security Megatrends: Converged Systems, Unified Intelligent Control
Tara Dunning of Wesco built on these themes by reintroducing the concept of convergence, a megatrend that SIA has tracked for years. She traced the evolution of the conversation from the proliferation of sensors — “the sensorization of all things,” as she put it — to last year’s focus on visual intelligence.
“It takes the data that is captured, whether it’s what you see, what you hear [or] what you capture, and turns it into intelligence that is actionable beyond just traditional security,” Dunning explained. And that means everyone (and everything) has to come together.
Thus, the next phase, according to Dunning, centers on converged systems and unified intelligent control. This includes aggregating disparate platforms — enterprise stacks like CRMs, ERPs, physical security systems and building systems like HVAC — into a unified dashboard.
“For the building operator, manager, IT manager [or] facilities manager, they want an aggregated view,” Dunning stated. Acknowledging that the term “single pane of glass” is overused, she instead emphasized the value of dashboards that can aggregate all this data and serve it up in an actionable way.
Security Megatrends: The Channel No Longer Linear?
Finally, Eric Yunag of Convergint addressed the evolution of the traditional go-to-market model. He argued that the traditional, linear channel may be fraying because, in his words, it was built as a system to move products — not to deliver outcomes.
Today’s dynamic technology ecosystem and complex converged solutions can create friction and a loss of accountability within this old model. The future, Yunag argued, lies in evolving from a linear channel to a value chain-oriented construct with end-user outcomes firmly at its center.
This new model prioritizes collaboration, trust and a shared focus on solving end-user problems.
“We’re sitting here in this room, with the leadership of our industry, with a collective responsibility to think about how we collaborate differently to solve these problems for end users,” Yunag said.
He believes that this requires a “build with” mindset instead of a “sell through” mindset…a mindset advancing beyond pushing products and instead prioritizing delivering outcomes. “[It’s going] from efficiency to effectiveness,” he added. “Like [going from] How do we efficiently move products to end markets? to How do we effectively deliver security outcomes?”
Ultimately, according to Yunag, the entire security ecosystem — from manufacturers to integrators — must work together to orchestrate the right components to achieve specific end-user security outcomes.
Security Megatrends: A New Landscape
By its conclusion, the Security Megatrends panel had converged on a key idea: Navigating this new landscape requires a collaborative and outcome-focused approach. The interconnectedness of software, hardware, data and AI demands that the security industry advance beyond traditional silos.
The businesses that thrive will be those that can effectively orchestrate complex technologies and diverse partnerships into a coherent value chain, ultimately delivering the security outcomes that end users need.
The new SIA Security Megatrends report will be released around January 2026.
Check out our website archives for past coverage of the SIA Security Megatrends.
