As 2025 came to a close, one thing became unmistakably clear: the gap between how fast technology is deployed and how thoughtfully it is governed continues to widen. Across security, public safety, and commercial environments, the past year was defined not by a single breakthrough, but by scale, more systems, more data, and more dependency on a growing reliance on technology to inform and support human decisions in real-world conditions, in real world conditions. That trajectory is not slowing in 2026. It’s accelerating.
Looking ahead, I believe three forces will shape our industry more than any individual product or platform.
- The Explosion of Visual Data, and the Operational Reality It Creates
We are entering an era where visual capture devices are everywhere, deployed across public, commercial, and personal environments at unprecedented scale.
CCTV systems, body-worn cameras, dashcams, and aerial drones are being deployed at unprecedented scale to protect people and keep public spaces safer. Operating continuously across cities, transportation networks, and critical infrastructure, they generate an immense volume of real-world video every minute.
This footage must be processed in real time or retrospectively, without missing critical details and while coping with motion, crowds, poor lighting, and other real-world constraints. Beyond this fixed infrastructure, billions of mobile devices add yet another layer of visual data. Turning all of this into reliable, timely insight is now central to delivering the safety and accountability these systems were meant to provide..
This challenge goes far beyond storage and bandwidth, it strikes at human decision-making itself. Every additional camera increases expectations: faster response, better decisions, clearer evidence, greater accountability. Yet human teams cannot scale linearly with data volume. In 2026, organizations will be forced to confront a hard truth: collecting video is easy; turning it into reliable, actionable insight you can trust, Insights that will assist you in performing your job is the real challenge.
- Constitutional, Legal, and Regulatory Shifts Are Catching Up, Fast
The second major force shaping 2026 is structural, not technical. The world itself is changing, socially, economically, and operationally, at a pace that is forcing institutions to rethink long-standing assumptions. Technologies that once played a supporting role, seen as nice to have, are now embedded necessities that influence how organizations operate, protect people, and make decisions under pressure.
In response to these shifts, legal frameworks are evolving to address new realities and growing challenges. Legislators work to modernize the legal basis for how advanced systems may be used and in what way. At the same time, regulators are putting clearer guidance in place, not only to define what is permitted, but to ensure that technology is applied responsibly, transparently, and explainably, with governance frameworks such as ISO 42001 increasingly emerging as the de facto requirement, rather than deployments being driven by capability alone.
Privacy is not a side discussion. It is the foundation upon which legitimacy rests. In 2026, organizations that treat regulation as a checkbox exercise will struggle. Those who understand regulation as a design constraint and social necessity, something that shapes systems from day one, will be the ones who endure.
The real shift is this: regulation will play a critical role in shaping and protecting our societies, ensuring AI is used safely, responsibly, and in a way that sustains public trust.
- The AI Trep
The AI revolution has produced an abundance of solutions that look impressive in demos and controlled environments. Many show strong, even impressive, results in sterile tests, but the real question emerges when they are put into the field: would you trust your family’s safety, your personal health, or the success of your work to them?
Security, healthcare, public safety, transportation, and critical infrastructure are not sterile labs. They are chaotic, noisy, unpredictable, and unforgiving. Decisions made in these environments affect liberty, safety, and human life.
The danger for decision-makers in 2026 is not choosing the wrong technology, it’s choosing the shiniest one. Fast answers, partial insights, or systems that fail quietly can be far more harmful than no automation at all. The hardest leadership challenge ahead is learning to look beyond surface-level performance and ask deeper questions:
Can this system be trusted? Is it reliable? Does it cover the full envelope I am expected to cover? Will it miss people under high traffic load?
Are its outputs defensible, explainable, and reliable over time?
In high-stakes environments, “right some of the time” is often indistinguishable from wrong.
Looking Ahead
As we move into 2026, three forces are converging: massive data growth, evolving legal foundations, and a growing dependence on AI systems operating in real-world conditions where failure is not an option. Together, they will force organizations to mature not only technologically, but operationally and ethically. For decision-makers, this moment represents both a test and an opportunity: leadership will belong to those who reject generic, surface-level solutions and insist on working with proven, expert systems, field tested, certified for trust, and designed to perform reliably within their own operational environments, long after the shine of novelty has faded.
