Verkada launches AI-Powered Deterrence, ushering in a new era where intelligent systems can help prevent crimes before they happen

Today, we announced the availability of AI-powered deterrence, a novel solution that proactively helps prevent crime by detecting and warning potential intruders before raising an alarm. This innovation addresses a critical gap in traditional security systems, which only react after a break-in has occurred.

Leveraging the latest large vision, audio, and language models, our AI-powered deterrence feature analyzes footage from video security cameras to detect unauthorized behavior like loitering and automatically triggers a sequence of AI-generated messages that incorporate scene context, such as describing a person's clothing or location, and escalate deterrence measures over time if the person remains on site. The system can also even change the voice for each deterrence incident for greater effectiveness against repeat offenders.

How AI Deterrence Works

Organizations can configure AI-powered deterrence to create intelligent workflows that begin with detection and escalate only when needed. Here is an example of how Verkada’s system might respond to a person loitering outside of a property after-hours: 

• Initial warning upon detection of the person loitering: "A reminder that this is private property. Please come back during business hours."

• If loitering continues, a context-aware message: "Hey you, with the red hoodie and backpack, you can't be here at this time. Please leave now before our alarms are triggered."

• If loitering continues, a final warning: "Hey, this is your final warning. If you don't leave now, I'll have to take immediate action."

• If loitering continues, an Alarm is raised and Verkada’s system can be configured to activate a siren/strobe, initiate live agent talk-down, notify a contact list of internal security teams, or dispatch the police.

This approach enables car dealerships to deter catalytic converter thieves, schools to prevent graffiti vandalism, and businesses to protect outdoor assets – all without unnecessary alarm activations.

We also announced the availability of more advanced AI-powered alerting capabilities, including compound alerts, which enable customers to trigger notifications only when multiple conditions that they specify are met. For example, you could ask Verkada Command to send an alert when a person crosses a restricted line and is not wearing a hard hat. Or, you could choose to set up loitering alerts only for individuals who have been identified as a person of interest. All of Verkada’s intelligent alerts are now able to be pushed seamlessly to external applications outside of Verkada Command, like PowerBI and Tableau, through newly available webhooks. 

We rolled out new AI-powered functionality across its intercoms and visitor management product to make building entry even more seamless and personalized:

• Live translation, which enables two-way translation for a visitor at a Verkada Intercom and the person answering the call. Both sides speak naturally, and the system handles the translation instantly. English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Hindi, and Russian are supported today, with plans to expand. 

• AI-powered voice directory, which enables visitors to speak their intent without needing the exact extension, name, or precise department they need. For example, a visitor to a multi-tenant building can simply say “I’m here for an interview at Verkada” or “I’m here to repair the water leak on the third floor,” and Verkada’s system will route each call to the appropriate organization and contact. 

• Biometric ID verification, which provides an extra layer of security for verifying the identities of visitors by comparing the image from a visitor’s driver’s license to their face captured by a Verkada Guest check-in kiosk. 

To continue speeding up investigations and reporting, we’re introducing AI-powered incident summaries, which automatically generate descriptions for video archives that are saved within an incident report. 

These latest announcements build on more than 174 new AI features and product updates we’ve delivered in the past year that unlock new efficiency for security professionals, including: 

• AI-powered unified timeline, which visually reconstructs and unifies video events of people and vehicles of interest across all of a site’s cameras into a single, map-based timeline. 

• AI-powered alerts that include activity- and industry-specific detections for organizations. 

• Operator View that centralizes alerts into a ticket-based system with a structured workflow. 

• Retail analytics that leverage computer vision to understand queue wait times, occupancy trends, sales conversion metrics, and more.