Five key technology trends affecting the security sector in 2026

“Ecosystem-first,” evolving hybrid architectures, edge computing, mobile surveillance and technology autonomy are among the key trends shaping security in 2026

It came as a surprise that this is the 10th time that we’ve looked at the technology trends that we think will affect the security sector in the coming year. It feels like only yesterday that we sat down to write the first – a reminder of how quickly time passes, and how fast technological progress continues to move.
 
Something that’s also become clear is that a completely new set of trends doesn’t appear year-on-year. Rather, we see an evolution of trends and technological developments, and that’s very much the case as we look towards 2026.
 
Technological innovations regularly arrive, which impact our sector. Artificial intelligence, advancements in imaging, greater processing capabilities within devices, enhanced communications technologies…these and more have impacted our industry. 
 
Even technologies which still seem a distance away, such as quantum computing, may have some potential implications in the near-term in preparing for the future. 
 
While we focus here on tech trends, it’s worth highlighting a shift that we’ve seen in recent years: the increasing involvement and influence of the IT department over decisions related to security and safety technology. The physical security and IT departments now work in close collaboration, with IT heavily involved in physical security purchasing decisions.
 
That influence, we feel, is central to the first of our trends for 2026…
 

1. “Ecosystem-first” becomes an important part of decision making

At a fundamental level, the greater influence of the IT department is changing the perspective regarding security technology purchasing decisions. We call this an “ecosystem-first” approach, and it influences almost every subsequent decision.
 
Today, however, we start to see a trend that the first decision is increasingly defined by the solution ecosystem to which the customer wants to commit. In many ways, it’s analogous to how IT has always worked: decide on an operating system, and then select compatible hardware and software.
 
The ecosystem-first approach makes a lot of sense. With today’s solutions including a greater variety of devices, sensors, and analytics than ever before, seamless integration, configuration, management, and scalability is essential. In addition, product lifecycle management, including, critically, ongoing software support, becomes more achievable within...