AI: The smart side of surveillance

Surveillance is not simply CCTV keeping track of people’s movements. It’s a lot more than that – it’s about tracking, trends and transitions and using artificial intelligence (AI) to make smart, informed decisions.

Neither is it just relating to safety and security. Surveillance is increasingly used by businesses seeking commercial advantage, by councils to improve public services efficiencies and by the utilities to help address global issues such as climate change via smart energy use.

This is surveillance – the recording and storing of images – with artificial intelligence tagged on allowing fast and superior levels of analysis and reaction. With AI, surveillance systems are leading to greater insights across many sectors.

In retail, for example, footfall and browsing pattern analysis allows stores to change pricing or product positioning based on real-time customer movements. In smart cities – those that are connected and communicate data among a range of services – AI and surveillance can be used to improve traffic flow, for example, by changing traffic light phasing in response to real-time activity. The finance sector can quickly spot irregular activity to minimise fraud. The options are almost endless and these responses are being undertaken by computers – not humans.

If you think about it, AI is the obvious match – and evolution – for surveillance. We’ve been capturing images for years with banks of screens where humans watch and respond. Now, with AI, these images can be analysed quickly with suitable responses created and implemented.

All good, but it means that, with AI surveillance, there is much more data that needs to be stored and analysed. It means surveillance systems have to be quicker, deeper and smarter. It’s no longer a case of storing video streams – the data has to be extracted and interpreted.

Exertis Hammer vendors such as Seagate and Intel are leading the pack on this. Seagate’s Skyhawk AI is a purpose-built hard drive for AI surveillance with extra capacity and robustness.  SkyHawk AI hard drive is the first created specifically for AI-enabled video surveillance solutions.

SkyHawk AI handles the intensive computational workloads that accompany AI work streams. It provides unprecedented bandwidth and processing power to manage always-on, data-intensive workloads, while simultaneously analysing and recording footage from multiple high-definition cameras.

Seagate has released a video explaining what AI is and why you need the technology for intelligent surveillance systems.

Intel has Optane memory, a smart technology that accelerates computers’ responsiveness, which, while still in its infancy, is expected to be mainstream in four years or so.