2023 - Reset, Rested and Ready ....with a splash of AI

Welcome 2023 !!

Its a new year and a time of RESET for us all, I like to always prep myself for the year ahead and reflect back on the previous years achievements, shortcomings and technology trends, whilst considering what can potentially be expected in the next 365 days ahead.

This always leads me to put my thoughts and opinions to paper.

I hope you enjoy the read...

Every new year brings a new adventure, new connections, new technology, new products, new innovations and new strategies and more prominently when working in the world of product, solutions and technology.

2022 was a year for me that saw a range of new exciting developments, solution offerings, new technology along with a personally driven shift into the Head of Product role at our organization within the electronic security sector. (this suiting my strengths and manner as a technologist ever seeking new opportunity) It certainly was not the easiest of years bringing many challenges, personal frustration and a drive for structure and business efficiency considering the strategy and framework put forward to be achieved. (and moving into 2023 there is still lots to be done)

However one element I have thoroughly enjoyed is Building a Product Team and it may sound cliche', but not just any team.. rather a team of like-minded technology and solutions driven individuals all aiming for the same goal while constantly learning, innovating and working together putting forward their individual strengths and knowledge to continuously find, develop and manage new technologies, smarter solutions, and exciting products for our customers and the wide range of market opportunities. This team is my product managers and solution specialists from whom I too constantly learn from as we collectively drive product-lead growth. (PLG)

With that said I am excited about the year ahead with my team as we are all RESTED and READY for 2023..

On the product and technology front it will once again be a year full of product developments and innovations, new strategies and all with a strong focus on AI (artificial intelligence) and where this can drive and support new opportunities, improve old solutions and provide insights through data collection.

In the electronic security field the 2023 technology trends and key drivers will remain similar and constant to that of 2022 (See my article "2022 - A year for Products, Prospects and People")

There will however (in my opinion) be some key additions and shifts in certain of these areas:

Cyber Security

Cyber security will remain a top priority as products and solutions digitize and introduce AI providing smarter offerings and more so when these solutions are the primary security in high risk applications. Cyber crime is real crime and often solutions that hold, gather or learn environmental data will remain key exploitation areas for these cyber criminals.

We will no doubt see a firmer approach to protecting against product exploits and minimizing potential cyber risk, significantly in edge based devices while end-user calls for cyber security compliance with continue to grow.

Shift to the Cloud (Hybrid Cloud)

The swing from local solutions to hybrid cloud solutions will continue to grow as the world across all sectors continues to digitize. This not only drives and supports "connected" offerings with a significant list of benefits when compared to traditional local offerings but further strengthens the "As-A-Service" business model we find many manufacturers and organizations gearing towards with a recurring revenue based, SLA (service level agreement) driven offering.

Often for the end-user the benefit from a solutions perspective in terms of features, management and cost with Hybrid Cloud is a "no-brainer" allowing more of a opex approach on the budgetary side for their needs as oppose to a capex outlay. This will see continued uptake and development in these solutions as the years move forward.

When it comes to product life-cycle and redundancy in the electronic security solutions, the rate of product and feature innovation is so rapid the hybrid cloud road map can be seen to make more weighted sense with long term benefits.

Lithium (Li)

Lithium batteries (although not new) are becoming the go-to choice for the electronic security sector across all areas of; Surveillance, Access Control, Intrusion, Energy, Automation, Networking and all Portable electronic security devices.

This due largely to the increased benefits of Lithium over traditional SLA batteries (Sealed Lead Acid) in terms of redundancy, cyclic use and life-span although carrying a higher cost.

This current trend will not change or decline just yet and has resulted in an exponential global increase in demand for Lithium by battery manufacturers across the world.

Product Improvements and Modernization

As they say "if it aint broke, dont fix it " there are many older traditional products and solutions used in the security sector that have done their job exceptionally well without all the "smarts" , but on the flip side if you dont innovate you get left behind.

With this in mind we are seeing an increase of manufacturers in older, mechanical or analogue based products look for improvements by means of digitization, AI or automating areas of working. In short looking to "get smart" and this will continue to grow moving forward.

A key area where this has been prominent is that of access control solutions. As well as in the field of audio based products and offerings.

AI Improvements and Acceptance:

I mention it again similar to my last article, purely driven by the rate of acceptance and improvement in this area, we see this across new and existing products and solutions offerings as new application uses are discovered each year and end-user acceptance in AI based products grows.

Linked largely to this is the drive for convergence across product sets and solutions by the end-user (made possible by AI) to bring unified, integrated solutions to the market addressing all areas of risk, management, business intelligence, operations, self diagnostics, and product interoperability.

Does it carry risk? Sure it does as with any technology.

As product get smarter, data collection increases and the use cases of what can be achieved autonomously through data training (good or bad) grows significantly.

However, the specific risks associated with AI depend on how it is used, designed and regulated. Some known risks moving into 2023 include:

• Bias: AI systems can exhibit bias if the data they are trained on is biased. This can result in unfair treatment of certain groups of people.
• Unemployment: AI has the potential to automate certain jobs, which could lead to unemployment. In South Africa where we have high-unemployment rates this has been prominent in the security sector.
• Cyber security: AI systems are be vulnerable to cyber attacks or misuse.
• Loss of control: AI systems may behave in ways that are difficult to predict or control, potentially leading to unintended consequences.

The risks should not slow implementation and adoption, due to development and product innovation as in most cases how it is used, designed and regulated is the key to safe optimal deployment.

With that said, and all my thoughts on paper I am Reset, Rested and Ready for 2023 and all that it holds.

Make sure you are too.

All the best for 2023

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For those of you who made it this far and enjoyed the read, you may have noticed that I titled this article "with a splash of AI" that's because I used a AI based dialogue platform and image generator from OpenAI known as "Chat GPT" and "DALL-E-2" to read my article and provide me possible captions as well as generate me a unique article image.

If you haven't checked it out you should, as it provides some context to the power of basic AI and perhaps use it to leave me a comment :)