Volume 138

ISC West is done, and here are my takeaways.

Below, I clarify the most important patterns and insights from the event.

🎧 Prefer to listen instead? Hilary and I recorded this week’s Secured episode on the show floor at the end of last week. We cover many of these takeaways there. Take a listen.

Instead of recapping each booth, I want to share the broader patterns and insights from four days in Las Vegas. My goal is to identify what these observations mean for the industry, rather than just telling you about the new 48-bit thing with 450 MHz of RAM and protons.

OK, I’ll share some booth highlights… The most impressive innovation I saw was a security design simulation tool built with gaming software by a newcomer to the industry. It was surprising, and I am amazed it does not already exist. In second place was Aliro. From Safetrust showcasing a card using Aliro to Kastle demonstrating the technology in Allegion’s booth, and MC Dean presenting a mobile credential supporting it at their booth, Aliro was omnipresent. I appreciated seeing KeyShare develop an app on Mercury and One's Technology collaborate with IDmachines to deliver a comprehensive, privacy-first credentialing system. Their e-ink badges should be a standard. The number of platform and automation companies emerging from GSOC, access control, video, data visualization, or identity management...entities integrating systems and data into unified solutions...continues to grow. Hivewatch (their rebrand and color scheme were striking), Secure Passage (also strong branding), 4S in the Quanargy booth, and Bearing were very on point with this trend. I believe platforms are the industry's future, with everything else serving to support them.

The show got big and ambitious.

This year, entering the show floor felt different: larger, more ambitious, and exciting. Not only were there 225 new booths and 6,500 extra square feet, but attendee numbers returned to pre-COVID levels. Exhibitors have elevated their booths and ambitions, expanding into startups, new trends, and digital trust. The show is evolving, and everyone involved, from RX to SIA, and most of the companies are keeping pace. This is the scale and momentum the security industry needs and deserves.

The industry now believes it can match its ambitions to the opportunities ahead. This signals a major shift in mindset. More on that below.

Tuesday has become the new Friday.

Hilary and I arrived on Monday for meetings and prep. In the past, that meant quiet hallways and exhibitors working on the show floor. This year, while there was still prep happening, Tuesday was filled with meetings, unscheduled bump-ins as you walked the hallways, and busy dinners and drinks with great people. It felt like a true Day 1. Credit goes to RX and SIA for earlier-in-the-week education and to travel nuances, especially for those coming from outside North America. This behavior shift matters if you plan your show calendar. Arrive Monday or Tuesday prepared. I leave Friday morning to be home by dinner, ready for a break.

I will make sure to come in early Monday and make the most of it moving forward. You should, too.

From the show floor.

Below are more observations I have been sitting with since walking off the floor and spending two days interviewing 45 executives. I keep noodling on these, so I want to share them broadly.

The growing sameness on the show floor signals that the industry has finally reached a new baseline. This is a positive sign.

“We got cloud, mobile, and APIs. Come get your AI!” Every booth is saying it and has it. Not kidding, everyone. Bring that alongside every press release and every show review article you read after the show, and they are all hitting the same notes. If I were a CEO or head of marketing for any company with a booth at this show, I would come home equally frustrated and excited, rethinking my messaging.

Although the show floor might initially appear “the same,” I encourage you to view it through a different lens.

This similarity reveals an inflection point: everyone now meets a strong baseline, making it clear which companies will differentiate by delivering new value and experiences. The next phase will be shaped by those who rise above the new norm.

Some companies are already distinguishing themselves, and we saw strong examples of this at the show.

The Verkada booth was a standout. They recreated the Louvre, using a heist narrative inspired by the headlines. It was inventive and executed skillfully. This is a rare combination at most shows. The interactive tour offered a great way to explore their products, with the guide providing insight throughout. The experience was informative rather than overtly sales-driven. Details mattered: the DVR displayed as an art piece caught attention. Acre’s booth was another example. They emphasized “The Bridge,” clearly presenting it through effective storytelling. The design, color, and texture made their message stand out. It was modern and memorable in a sea of blue, white, red, and black.

Both had different approaches, but the same outcome: they told a story uniquely theirs. Most booths still do not. The 1980s tradeshow playbook… hardware front and center, blinking lights, pedestals with labels like “Video” or “Locks” with a screen underneath showing the interface, metal boxes dressed up as cloud infrastructure… is losing to booths that make you feel something. That shift is only accelerating, and it was obvious at this show. I heard it from many people without prompting them that they also saw it.

This shift signals it's time to reconsider everything. Empower your creative teams, not product or engineering, to drive fresh approaches. Remember, creativity doesn't have to be expensive. Creativity comes from supporting your team to think differently.

Stop asking which one wins.

“So what do you think of mobile versus cards?” “Aliro or proprietary?” “We are thinking about moving to cloud versus on-prem, what do you think?”

These questions dominated every panel, every booth walkthrough, every happy hour I attended. I would be pulled aside and quietly asked these questions at every stop.

Despite their differences, these questions all point to the same underlying concern.

“So, which one wins?”

My answer: You are asking the wrong question.

The industry is moving toward a future defined by customer choice. The architectures that empower users to choose how they want to operate, store data, and deploy systems are upon us. Choice is no longer a feature; it’s foundational, reflecting new expectations about trust and flexibility.

The companies that understand the difference are building around it. The companies that do not are still trying to win an argument the market has already moved past, wasting energy on a decision that won't solve the real need. This is what small ball looks like. It is time we start playing big ball.

As end users and integrators, stop asking “what do you think about mobile versus card?” The answer is yes to both. The better question is: what are you looking to deliver? You have the power of choice now.

For manufacturers and software providers, this comes down to whether you are delivering an architecture that lets the customer own their own future and make a choice. Everything else is a feature fight. You will expend all your energy trying to answer a question that is not going to help you in the end, and it is a fight you have already lost.

An open mindset is more disruptive than open technology.

Open was the word of the week. Open credentials >><< Open APIs >><< Open systems. Everyone said it… including many who are still proprietary, which is a story for another Brief. If you have followed our content and my writing, you know that I feel “open” is “the beard” of our industry. Being “the beard” means it is more or less surface-level marketing that misuses a term that, in the end, has no meaning, and you cannot own (it's what being active looks like, not productive)… and at ISC, the misuse continued.

But it did have one positive change.

The real disruption is not coming from open technology, but from people and companies deciding to think more openly. There is a refreshing shift in mindset and a freedom in thinking. It is like many of you, and your companies have been given permission to show up differently.

Here is how the mindset change is happening.

When a company says yes to an integration they would have blocked two years ago because of the level of effort and lack of ROI, that is mindset openness. And they do it in weeks versus months now. Integrations are seen as must-haves, and having clearly defined, accessible APIs has made integration dramatically easier.

When a customer walks away from proprietary lock-in they accepted for 20 years because the open system delivers more value than the lock-in ever did, that is the mindset of openness.

When a sales team stops protecting territory and starts building broad ecosystems, that is mindset openness.

Sure, some of this required new tech like APIs or new standards. But more importantly, all the way up to the top of organizations, it required a business decision to let go of how things have always been done. Corporate mindsets have changed.

That mindset shift is killing old truths at a higher rate than we have seen. It is like a new religion is working its way through an industry. Everyone is singing its gospel.

Proprietary lock-in as a business model… being questioned (hallelujah!).

Having their roadmap dictate your system… being questioned (hallelujah!).

The installer as gatekeeper between manufacturer and customer… being questioned (hallelujah!).

Hardware margin as the foundation of company value… being questioned (hallelujah!).

These were the sacred cows, the “old truths,” of this industry. They are not dying because of a new credential standard. They are dying because the mindset shifted, and it has worked its way up to the Boards of large companies, who see the light.

Out of everything openness brings, the mindset shift is the most consequential. The door is open for the whole industry, and it is time to move to stage two of the religious takeover: implementation.

Disruption came from inside the building.

Not from Silicon Valley or a well-funded startup with a deck full of slides about disrupting physical security. Not from one of the old guard with some killer R&D department that wowed the show floor. The disruption I saw came from integrators. MC Dean and Sage are the clearest examples, but in different ways. They did not arrive and disrupt with better technology. They arrived with something much harder to replicate: proximity to the customer, a story, the ability to implement at scale, and the trust that comes with it. The integrator relationship, long treated as a distribution channel, is revealing itself as a genuine strategic asset. They are also not afraid to build their own solutions. Check out MC Dean’s InfraLink product. Or look at what Sage did with the Experience Center. They are controlling the orchestration, not waiting for someone else to do it for them.

As end users start coming to ISC more often, integrators who show early and build at ISC are creating something manufacturers and software platforms are still trying to figure out how to match.

Watch the show grow not only with manufacturers and software companies, but also with integrators taking more booth space. The next wave of disruption in this industry will not only announce itself from a product company. It will come from someone who already has a relationship with end users.

What interested me most from the Ambient.ai and Securitas news wasn’t the partnership itself.

Are we at a new dawn of product where the solution not only helps streamline the integrator but also delivers direct value for their customers? Think about it. When has a video system or an access control system ever been a tool the integrator used to deliver operational efficiencies for itself while simultaneously being a solution they could sell? That is value creation on the inside and the outside simultaneously. It rings similar to what we see from products like Amazon, Claude, Salesforce, and other enterprise software. And what it means is that the relationship among the integrator, manufacturer, and customer fundamentally differs from anything we have seen in our industry before. It is another clear example of our industry starting to look like the enterprise software industry. And because of that, the truths that exist there will start existing here: stickiness, platform dependency, and business models built on outcomes, not installations. The companies that understand this early will build something that is very difficult to compete with.

What 45 interviews told me.

The podcast studio on the show floor was an absolute success. I spent the better part of the week recording conversations with more than 45 industry leaders. We are going to double down on it in 2027 and continue building on it for the rest of 2026. A few themes ran consistently across almost all of them. I will have more on this, but for a quick take…

Most executives are genuinely excited about the platform shift we discussed above. Not just curious about it. Excited and building toward it.

When it came to whether we as an industry should be in the important rooms where important policy decisions are being made, like the Munich Security Conference or Davos, there was near-universal agreement that we should absolutely be there. Where the agreement broke down was on who is responsible for telling the story and who should be leading. Most acknowledged that companies with the resources, brand names, and reach should lead and do a better job. Many expressed frustration that an industry capable of protecting the buildings where the most important conversations in the world happen has not yet forced itself into those conversations.

What surprised me most was the absence of pushback. I expected resistance to the mainstream thesis. I did not get much. What I got instead was impatience. People want to move faster than the industry is moving. It is as if they are waiting for their better angels to arrive. Stop waiting. The only thing holding most of you back is the permission you are waiting for.

This is our mainstream moment.

I want to be clear about what I mean by 'mainstream'. This is not a post-COVID attendance-rebound story, though the numbers do support that, too. This is something different, and it is what happens when an industry gets big.

Mainstream markets have a bigness to them. You see real money spent on physical space, storytelling, and experiences. You see competitive pressure that lifts the entire floor, not just the leaders. You see new entrants with resources who are not asking permission. ISC 2026 felt like that. The additional 225 exhibitors from 2025 and the sheer size of some of the booths on the floor are not coincidences.

They are a signal: the opportunity is being priced into the spend.

That scale will put pressure on two things most immediately: companies that do not invest alongside it, and shows that have not kept pace. The ones that survived on institutional loyalty and habit will feel it, and the ones that evolved will grow. That is already playing out, and 2026 was the year it became very visible.

What our breakfast tells us.

Three years ago, we looked at the show floor on the first day and saw East Coast, European, and APAC executives with nowhere to go. We also saw everyone exhausted at night, running from bar to bar. We thought we could host a networking breakfast, create something that wouldn't compete with other events, and present something nice that our industry deserved. We booked a small room at Bouchon, and 120 people showed up. When it was over, we decided to take the whole restaurant and planned for 200. Little did we know we would have 425 pre-registered and 315 happily in the room. (Side note: From a metrics standpoint, that is a very good conversion number, especially at a tradeshow.

Hilary and I felt it, and it is so fulfilling. Standing at the door, shaking hands as people came through, is one of those rare moments when the work you do online becomes real and physical. You can see the engagement numbers and measure the reach. But you cannot fully feel it until you are in the room. The stories we hear about business that gets done after people meet at one of these events are even better.

What breakfast shows is that you can build online and connect deeply with the offline world. We built our business primarily through LinkedIn and email newsletters and by showing up in the market. If you do not leave that room, or see the pictures from our breakfast, and challenge your team with “how can we do something like this,” I think that is a missed opportunity.

Breakfast is becoming a staple, just as Industry Night is now a thing at The Security Event in Birmingham. We intend to keep building and continue directing proceeds toward the Foundation Advancing Security Talent (FAST), an organization doing essential work on one of the industry’s most important problems: the next generation of talent. If you want to help us grow it, let us know.

On the broader ecosystem.

Everyone should feel good about where the Security Industry Association and FAST are headed. Under Don Erickson’s leadership, with a new COO now joining from outside the industry, SIA is building something that deserves more from all of us. The advocacy work alone is second to none, and the tent is getting bigger. Practitioners, end users, and startups are being brought into the conversation alongside legacy manufacturers, and it is the right direction.

My ask is simple: How can you help build an association that is actually set up for what today and tomorrow look like? Get involved and do it globally. This is not just a North American opportunity. There is room for everyone, everywhere.

I will address ASIS directly. The organization's historical work is real and should be respected and celebrated. The practitioners and members in chapters across the world are its greatest asset. But the organization has lost the script, and it is a drain on resources. I do not believe two competing associations serve anyone… not our industry, not our customers, not the next generation of professionals who will look back and judge the decisions we are making right now. Every day spent sustaining a parallel association is a day spent mortgaging the future to protect the past. I have voted with my time, my money, and my feet. I would ask you to do the same.

The startups area at ISC West was a success and should be replicated everywhere. What it represented, more than anything else, was access. AI agents, back office systems, video analytics, and access control reimagined. The next JCI, the next Genetec, the next Brivo… one of them is somewhere in that building. We owe it to the industry to give them more room, more support, and more visibility. Think of it as an R&D portfolio we are all investing in by making room, showing up, and paying attention. The question is whether the rest of the community is ready to meet them where they are. I believe the answer is yes, but believing it is not enough.

Now what.

The show confirmed something we have been saying here for a while: this is no longer a future state, but the present. The industry has arrived in the mainstream, and the window to position yourself as a leader in it is not open forever.

So here is my ask.

Stop spending your energy trying to convince the Nevers. The companies and individuals committed to the past will remain there until circumstances force them out. That is not your problem to solve. Your problem is to move fast enough that the Maybes and the Yeses see a clear path forward and choose to walk it with you.

Act as if the mainstream moment is already here, because it is. The only thing holding most of you back is the permission you are waiting for. Stop waiting. That means telling better stories, building for choice not control, and treating the integrator relationship as a strategic asset instead of a distribution tax.

And can we please start showing up in the rooms where the future of this industry is actually being decided? Those rooms are not hypothetical.

We are going to do what we believe we can. LinkedIn is the top of the funnel for awareness and exposure. The PhySec Collective is the digital watering hole where conversations happen daily. The Secured Podcast is where the weekly conversation lives. The Security Event XForum in Birmingham is where the next set of critical conversations takes place in April, just as Intersec Dubai in January and ISC last week did. ACS26 in Auckland and Hamilton, New Zealand, is where the executive cohort convenes in October around the theme that defined this show: Our Mainstream Moment. And ACS27 in Munich, during the Munich Security Conference, is where we take that conversation into the rooms where global security policy gets made. We will show up, and we want you to join us. The conversation is already underway.

Thank you. What a week.