Physical Security Trends for 2026

Convergence: Holistic Security as the Default

• Video, access control, intrusion, visitor management, and OT monitoring are increasingly unified into a single operational picture, often led or co-owned by IT.
• Risk assessment is shifting from “site by site” to enterprise and supply-chain level, integrating cyber, physical, and business continuity scenarios.
• Security teams are expected to contribute to enterprise resilience, not just incident response.

Across the research, there’s a strong pivot away from generic “one-size-fits-all” architectures toward sector-specific stacks and “security-plus” business outcomes: 

• Genetec’s 2025 State of Physical Security shows increasing IT influence over physical security purchasing and a clear preference for hybrid deployments and AI only where it supports concrete operational outcomes.
• SIA’s Megatrends emphasize democratization of identity and mobile credentials, plus a shift from video as evidence to visual intelligence as a business tool.
• Gallagher’s 2025 Security Industry Trends Report adds a distinctly people-centred lens: security is expected to be easy to use, supportive of frontline staff, and a driver of trust and operational value (“security-plus”), with mobile credentials and user experience ranking high in their global surveys.
  

In practice for 2026:

• Healthcare: privacy-preserving video analytics, strict identity assurance for staff and contractors, and integrated life-safety / clinical workflows.
• Critical infrastructure & manufacturing: converged IT/OT SOCs, OT-aware threat detection, and tighter governance over remote access and vendor connections.
• Corporate & campuses: mobile and multi-factor credentials, role-based access, and occupancy analytics tied into real-estate and workplace strategies.

The trend is clear: success metrics for physical security are expanding from “fewer incidents” to “safer, smoother, more trusted operations.” 

Across virtually every 2025 report, AI is a central theme on both the attack and defense sides. 

• Fortinet and CrowdStrike show adversaries using automation and AI to accelerate reconnaissance, phishing, and exploitation.
• Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2025 documents widespread use of generative AI in social engineering and the commercialization of cybercrime tooling.
• SIA Megatrends explicitly names “AI: Intelligent Automation of Security” as a top megatrend, with more than 90% of surveyed solution developers focusing R&D on AI features.
• Genetec’s 2025 State of Physical Security Report finds that 37% of end users plan to implement AI-powered features, and 42% see AI primarily as a workflow and efficiency tool, not a novelty.
• Genetec’s November 2025 predictions for 2026 forecast a shift from generic AI hype to “intelligent automation” that streamlines workflows, improves accuracy, and helps extract meaningful insights from large volumes of data.
  
  

For physical security, AI in 2026 will be judged on:

• Detection quality (reducing false positives and misses).
• Time-to-decision (shortening recognition, triage, and response cycles).
• Explainability and governance (documented use cases, clear data flows, and audit trails).

Security leaders should expect board-level questions about Responsible AI: how models are trained, how biases are managed, and how privacy is protected.

Hybrid cloud has moved from “emerging trend” to default design pattern:

• Cisco’s 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index shows only a small minority of organizations at mature readiness, with most still struggling to secure identities, cloud workloads, and AI-related risks in hybrid environments.
• Genetec’s State of Physical Security 2025 reports that hybrid deployments are the preferred direction for many end users over the next five years, combining on-premises, edge, and cloud services.
• Genetec’s 2026 trends predict that flexible cloud adoption and vendors offering “full-range deployment options” will outperform rigid, single-model architectures.
• Gallagher’s 2025 report and SIA’s Megatrends both reinforce the shift to platform aggregation and managed services, with cloud-connected ecosystems and mobile credentials becoming mainstream expectations.
  
  

Implications for 2026 physical security designs:

• Expect mixed estates: some assets remain on-prem for latency, privacy, or regulatory reasons, while remote sites and analytics workloads move to cloud or edge appliances.
• Interoperability and open architecture matter more than ever; lock-in to proprietary stacks is increasingly seen as a strategic risk.
• Security teams must treat cloud configuration, identity management, and API security as core parts of their physical security posture.

Physical systems are now critical nodes on the network and regular targets: 

• Verizon’s 2025 DBIR reports a sharp increase in ransomware (+37%) and exploited vulnerabilities (+34%), with third-party and supply-chain exposure doubling.
• ENISA’s Threat Landscape 2025 highlights phishing (~60% of initial intrusions) and vulnerability exploitation (~21%) as key access vectors, with many leading to malware deployment.
• Microsoft’s 2025 Digital Defense Report and WEF’s Cybersecurity Outlook both emphasize that AI-enabled attacks and commoditized cybercrime put poorly managed IoT, access control, and video endpoints at real risk.
  
  

Key 2026 priorities for physical security leaders:

• Zero-trust by design: no implicit trust for devices, users, or sites; continuous verification, least privilege, and micro-segmentation for security devices and management platforms.
• Secure configuration & patching as explicit lifecycle workflows, not “best effort” tasks, especially for NVRs, controllers, and IoT sensors.
• Joint playbooks between physical security, IT, and OT teams to respond to incidents that cross boundaries (e.g. door controllers used as a pivot into OT networks).