There is an important difference between interesting technology and technology to which we can entrust a property. A user may barely notice an alarm system for months at a time. That is usually a sign that it is doing its job. But when a real event occurs, it must react immediately and predictably.
That is why new solutions cannot be judged only by what they can demonstrate during a presentation. We need to understand how they behave when communications are less than ideal, when an internet connection fails, when the network infrastructure changes, or when the system needs to be upgraded after several years.
The same principle applies to cloud services, mobile applications and artificial intelligence. All of them can dramatically expand what a security system can do. Cloud services enable remote access and new forms of management. Mobile apps can deliver information to the user almost instantly. Video analytics can help distinguish relevant events from a large volume of unnecessary information.
Capability is not the same as usefulness.
Artificial intelligence adds another step: instead of merely recording an event, the system can increasingly help interpret it. That is precisely where it becomes important to separate an impressive demonstration from real practical value.
Technology that sends a user dozens of unnecessary alerts every day quickly stops being a security tool. The user begins to ignore them. The same applies to a system that offers many functions but is difficult to configure, maintain or explain to the people who use it every day.
So with every new technology we look at the outcome. Is the system more reliable, simpler or more useful than before? If it is, the technology is worth adopting. If not, being new is not an argument in itself.
That is why new technologies continue to fascinate us: not because they are new, but because some of them genuinely change what can be achieved. Our job is to identify which ones really do.