Artificial intelligence still seems like a far off concept for most businesses in San Francisco, CA, but while true AI that has thoughts and feelings is still far beyond us, an AI capable of making decisions based on the information and guidelines it’s been given is a reality we’re already starting to experience.

In fact, most businesses in San Francisco, CA already benefit from this type of artificial intelligence if they use the Internet at all. Algorithms are a special application of mathematics and software that allow computers to filter through huge amounts of data, and come up quickly with decisions, such as how to rank search results on a Google search. When applied to security, this type of AI can help improve safety and security in several different ways, including:

Theft Detection

Surveillance cameras in retail stores have now been with us for years. However, what a security camera cannot do is realize that it is witnessing a crime. It takes a human watching video surveillance to use years of experience to judge that shoplifting, for example, is occurring at a particular shelf or clothing rack.

AI, however, is now using data analytics to identify, tag and notify staff of theft. By analyzing the compiled data from security cameras that have caught shoplifters in the act, AI can remember and average out all the actions and movements that people make while attempting to shoplift. Thus, with the software itself “watching” security footage, when AI recognizes the movements of a shoplifter, it can now warn staff, rather than requiring staff to realize a theft has occurred, and consult the footage later to find out what happened and when.

Social Media Monitoring

Social media is too big for any one human, or group of humans, to quickly, efficiently evaluate and process. With people all over the world constantly creating posts, putting up photos, or making comments both appropriate and not, the only way a human can respond to inappropriate—or even criminal—content is by evaluating reports filed by other users.

AI, however, can monitor posts as they happen and make an immediate decision, or notify a human decision maker. Because AI doesn’t require sleep, doesn’t take breaks, and can read and process data millions of times faster than a human, it can quickly act on social media content for much faster response times.

Facial Recognition

This is another important function, especially in investigation and surveillance. Currently, if a suspect or person of interest is known to have been in an area, humans must manually view security camera footage and rely on their own eyes and memory to spot a person they are trying to track.

AI, however, is getting better and faster at performing this same task much more quickly. Given that AI can efficiently go over security camera footage, social media footage, and even secondary sources such as traffic cameras, ATM cameras, and even dashboard cam footage if it's online and available, AI can much more quickly identify and track the movements of people it has recognized and “tagged.”

AI is now becoming an important tool for security in San Francisco, CA. Where humans still need a lot of time to evaluate information before reaching a decision, a correctly trained AI can perform the same task in a fraction of the time.