Week after week, more employees are putting the pandemic behind them and returning to in-person work. While the return to the office signals a return to normalcy, increased security should be a priority for companies.
The stress and anxiety caused by the pandemic compounded with an expected rise in physical security threats demand a new approach to workplace security. As companies look to enhance their security operations to counter these trends, computer vision intelligence is unlocking capabilities that help prevent incidents before they happen.
With the ability to automatically analyze surveillance camera videos for threat signatures, computer vision intelligence is identifying and prioritizing human intervention before the escalation of a physical security incident – resulting in places of work that are safer from violence.
Today, we’re announcing a new release of the Ambient.ai Platform that includes new threat signatures that deliver signals intelligence. With this release, Ambient.ai is more effective than ever at empowering security teams to proactively dispatch on security threats and prevent workplace violence.
A Challenging Return to Work
The pandemic has raised stress levels and brought new concerns to the forefront for many employees. In a March 2022 survey, the American Psychological Association reported that close to three in five (58%) adults labeled the pandemic as a daily stressor. Even after two years of modifying behaviors to reduce the risk of COVID-19, employees continue to report unusually high levels of stress.
At the same time, workplace violence is an ever looming issue. More than two million people face workplace violence annually, and it’s likely that number will rise in the coming years. A recent report found that 88% of business and security leaders anticipate an increase in physical threats of all kinds to their enterprise organizations in 2022. When coupled with already high levels of stress and uncertainty, employees may find themselves struggling to return to work if they don’t feel safe.
With the tools most commonly at a security team’s disposal, preventing workplace violence is challenging. Early indicators of workplace violence, like loitering, tailgating, and sudden egress, are incredibly hard for security operations teams to catch while watching security camera streams. And someone with knowledge of the physical location and employee behavior patterns – like an agitated former employee – can often bypass physical access control systems (PACS). On top of that, the high-volumes of false alerts generated by PACS means that security teams are often more focused on dispositioning alerts rather than proactively preventing security threats.
As a result, workplace violence is one of the most challenging vectors for security and risk management executives. In a recent webinar, J.T. Mendoza, former deputy director of the U.S. Air Force’s Insider Threat Hub, shared that $121B in annual business losses are attributable to workplace assaults. These incidents have cost publicly traded companies 8% in shareholder value. Workplace violence includes active shooter incidents, half of which have occurred in businesses since 2000.
To prevent workplace violence, security operations teams need tools that can automatically detect early indicators of workplace violence, enabling security teams to prioritize intervention before the escalation of a physical security incident occurs.
Preventing Workplace Violence with Computer Vision Intelligence
When it comes to preventing workplace violence, proactively detecting and dispatching on threat indicators is critical. Ambient.ai’s computer vision intelligence enables real-time proactive alerts that empower security teams to intervene proactively before an incident has occurred.
In January, we announced the general availability of a library of more than 100 threat signatures for threat detection and response. Today, we announced the addition to that library with the general availability of 25+ new threat signatures focused on signals intelligence. The new threat signatures improve access control by using all signals data available, including PACS events and streaming surveillance videos, to automate the identification of access control threats and enable interventions at the earliest signs of a workplace violence incident.
With the latest release, Ambient.ai can accurately detect security threats that are closely related to workplace violence, including tailgating, loitering, sudden egress, and more.
In addition, the signals intelligence created when Ambient.ai correlates PACS with video streams provides relief to overburdened security operations centers. In today’s security operations center, physical access control systems are responsible for the vast majority of physical security alerts, 90% of which are noise. Maintenance issues, faulty hardware, and the lack of context available in a PACS event, place visual validation burdens on security personnel. Removing this burden on our physical security personnel frees them up to focus on threat detection and response, ushering in a new era of proactive security that will help enterprises protect their most valuable assets.
Creating a Safer Workplace
Our mission here at Ambient.ai has always been to prevent every security incident possible. With many contemplating a return to the office, it’s crucial that employees feel safe. Computer vision intelligence unlocks capabilities that help prevent incidents before they happen.
Computer vision intelligence identifies and prioritizes human intervention before the escalation of a physical security incident – resulting in places of work that are safer from violence. With new threat signatures and signals intelligence, Ambient.ai is more effective than ever at empowering security teams to ensure a safe return to the workplace.
To learn more about the benefits of signals intelligence, download our whitepaper, Signals Intelligence: Focusing Responder Time on Actionable, Security Aware Alerts. And if you have questions about Ambient.ai contact us or request a demo.
