🛒 The Retail Security Crisis

Retail is under siege. The National Retail Federation’s annual security survey consistently reports shrinkage losses exceeding $100 billion annually across the U.S. retail industry. Organized retail crime (ORC) has escalated from a nuisance to an existential threat — coordinated theft rings targeting stores for high-value merchandise, often with increasingly brazen and violent tactics that endanger employees and customers alike.

The problem goes far beyond traditional shoplifting. ORC syndicates conduct surveillance, recruit boosters, and execute coordinated grab-and-go operations across multiple locations. Violent confrontations during theft events have surged, with retail workers facing unprecedented levels of aggression. Parking lot crimes — carjackings, robberies, and assaults — have increased dramatically, particularly at big box retailers and shopping centers.

Meanwhile, retailers face margin pressure from every direction. Labor costs are rising, foot traffic patterns have permanently shifted post-pandemic, and the expectation for seamless omnichannel experiences means that every dollar spent on security needs to deliver additional operational value beyond loss prevention.

Traditional retail security — cameras recording to DVRs, loss prevention associates monitoring a handful of screens, and after-the-fact investigation — simply cannot keep pace with today’s threat landscape. Retailers need proactive, intelligent security that detects threats as they emerge, scales across hundreds of locations, and delivers operational analytics that justify the investment.

Kognition AI transforms your existing retail camera infrastructure into a powerful AI-driven platform for loss prevention, traffic analytics, customer safety, and multi-location security management.

🔍 Why Retailers Choose Kognition AI

🎯 Leverage Existing Camera Investments

Retail chains have invested millions in surveillance cameras — often with different manufacturers across different store vintages and remodel cycles. Kognition works with any ONVIF-compatible camera, meaning your Axis cameras, Hanwha cameras, Bosch cameras, and even budget IP cameras all work together under a single AI platform. No rip-and-replace. No proprietary hardware requirements. Immediate ROI from day one.

📊 Multi-Location Dashboard

Whether you operate 10 stores or 1,000, Kognition provides a centralized dashboard that gives regional LP managers and corporate security teams unified visibility across every location. Compare traffic patterns, alert volumes, and incident rates across your entire portfolio. Identify outlier stores that need attention. Drill down to individual cameras at any location with a single click.

🔄 Security + Business Intelligence

Unlike legacy security systems that only serve loss prevention, Kognition delivers dual value — security intelligence and operational analytics from the same platform and the same cameras. People counting data feeds store operations, marketing, and real estate teams with foot traffic insights that drive business decisions.

🤝 Seamless Integration

Kognition integrates with Milestone XProtect and other leading VMS platforms, alarm monitoring systems, and POS exception reporting tools. AI-powered alerts flow into existing security workflows, and video intelligence can be correlated with transaction data for comprehensive loss investigation.

🛡️ Kognition Applications for Retail

👥 People Detection & Counting

Kognition’s People application is the most versatile tool in the retail security arsenal, providing both loss prevention intelligence and operational analytics:

• Entrance/exit traffic counting: Accurate, AI-powered people counting at every store entrance provides reliable foot traffic data. Unlike infrared beam counters that miscount groups, or thermal sensors that struggle with crowding, Kognition’s computer vision counting maintains accuracy even during peak shopping periods. This data feeds directly into conversion rate calculations, marketing attribution models, and staffing optimization.
• Zone-based traffic analytics: Understand how customers flow through your store. Which departments attract the most traffic? Where do customers linger? Which displays generate foot traffic but not sales? Zone-based people counting turns your security cameras into a powerful retail analytics platform.
• Loss prevention hotspot monitoring: Define AI-powered zones around high-shrinkage areas — electronics displays, cosmetics counters, premium merchandise sections — and receive alerts when unusual activity patterns occur. Detect loitering, group formation, and other behavioral patterns associated with organized retail crime reconnaissance.
• After-hours intrusion detection: Automatically detect unauthorized presence in stores after closing. Distinguish between authorized cleaning crews (scheduled access windows) and genuine break-in attempts, eliminating false alarms while ensuring real intrusions trigger immediate response.
• Fitting room monitoring: Monitor fitting room area traffic patterns (not individual rooms) to detect suspicious behavior such as empty-handed exits after carrying large quantities of merchandise into the area — a hallmark of concealment theft.
• Occupancy management: Real-time headcount tracking enables compliance with fire code occupancy limits during peak shopping events — Black Friday, holiday sales, product launches — without stationing employees at every entrance with manual clickers.
• Back-of-house monitoring: Detect unauthorized individuals in receiving docks, stockrooms, employee-only areas, and cash handling rooms. Internal theft and receiving fraud account for a significant portion of retail shrinkage.

🔔 Watchlist — Facial Recognition

Kognition’s Watchlist application addresses one of retail’s most persistent challenges — repeat offenders and organized retail crime operatives:

• Known shoplifter alerts: Maintain watchlists of individuals previously caught shoplifting, trespassed, or identified by law enforcement as ORC operatives. When a flagged individual enters any store in your chain, LP teams receive instant alerts with the individual’s photo, history, and the camera feed showing their current location.
• Organized retail crime network tracking: ORC rings often send different boosters to different stores. Watchlist enables cross-location identification — when an individual flagged at your Northside location appears at your Southside store, LP is immediately alerted, even though Southside staff has never seen this individual before.
• Trespass enforcement: When individuals are formally trespassed from your stores, Watchlist provides automated enforcement. No more relying on individual store employees to remember faces or check paper trespass lists.
• Employee theft investigation support: When internal theft investigations identify suspects, Watchlist can track their movements across multiple stores and verify their presence at locations and times associated with inventory anomalies.
• VIP customer recognition: For luxury retail and high-end shopping environments, identify VIP customers upon arrival to provide personalized service — a capability that transforms security infrastructure into a customer experience tool.
• Violent offender awareness: Flag individuals previously involved in violent incidents — assaults on employees, aggressive confrontations, armed robbery attempts — to provide advance warning that enables de-escalation or law enforcement contact before an encounter turns violent.

🚗 Vehicle Intelligence

Parking lots and surrounding areas are often the most vulnerable zones for retail properties. Kognition’s Vehicles application extends security beyond the storefront:

• Parking lot license plate recognition: Capture license plates for every vehicle entering retail parking areas. In the event of a theft, assault, or hit-and-run, investigators have immediate vehicle identification rather than spending hours reviewing grainy parking lot footage.
• Known offender vehicle alerts: Flag vehicles associated with known shoplifters, ORC operatives, or trespassed individuals. Receive alerts when these vehicles appear in any store parking lot, providing advance warning before the individual even enters the store.
• Parking lot safety monitoring: Track vehicles that idle for extended periods, circle the lot repeatedly, or park in unusual locations — behaviors associated with parking lot robberies, vehicle break-ins, and surveillance of theft targets.
• Loading dock vehicle verification: Verify that delivery vehicles match expected manifests — correct plates, correct vehicle types, correct delivery windows. Prevent unauthorized vehicles from accessing receiving areas where merchandise fraud and theft occur.
• Multi-location vehicle tracking: Identify vehicles that appear at multiple store locations in patterns consistent with ORC boosting operations — the same van visiting different stores in the chain on the same day or across consecutive days.

🔫 Weapons Detection — Powered by ZeroEyes

Retail environments are increasingly targeted for violent attacks. Through our ZeroEyes partnership, Kognition provides a critical layer of protection:

• Immediate firearm detection: Detect brandished weapons the moment they appear on any camera — in stores, parking lots, common areas, or food courts. In mass shooting scenarios, seconds of advance warning enable lockdowns, evacuations, and law enforcement notification that save lives.
• Parking lot to storefront coverage: Weapons detection begins in exterior areas — parking lots and building approaches — providing advance warning before an armed individual enters the store.
• Human-verified alerts: ZeroEyes’ operations center, staffed by trained U.S. military veterans, verifies every detection before dispatching alerts. This eliminates the false positive problem that renders other automated systems ineffective in busy retail environments.
• Shopping mall and multi-tenant coverage: For mall operators and shopping centers, Kognition with ZeroEyes provides weapons detection across common areas, parking structures, entrances, and food courts — protecting the entire property, not just individual tenant spaces.
• Employee safety: Retail workers face unprecedented levels of violence. Weapons detection provides an additional layer of protection that demonstrates organizational commitment to employee safety and helps with recruitment and retention in a tight labor market.

🏢 Use Cases Across Retail

🏬 Big Box & Department Stores

Large-format stores present unique security challenges — vast floor areas, multiple entrances, extensive parking, and high-value merchandise departments:

• Departmental loss prevention: AI-powered monitoring of high-shrinkage departments (electronics, cosmetics, tools, apparel) with customized alert rules based on the specific theft patterns in each area.
• Garden center and outdoor area coverage: Extend AI detection to garden centers, lumber yards, and outdoor display areas where traditional security coverage often drops off.
• Self-checkout monitoring: Detect suspicious behavior patterns at self-checkout stations — frequent scan overrides, items bypassing the scanner, and cart concealment techniques.
• Emergency exit monitoring: Detect merchandise movement toward emergency exits and push-out theft — a growing tactic where organized groups load carts with high-value items and sprint toward fire exits.

🛍️ Shopping Malls & Retail Centers

Mall operators and shopping center management companies face security challenges that span the entire property:

• Common area surveillance: AI-powered monitoring of corridors, food courts, play areas, and restroom approaches — the spaces between tenant stores where incidents frequently occur.
• Parking structure security: Multi-level parking structures are high-crime environments. Vehicle tracking, people detection, and weapons detection provide comprehensive parking security.
• Crowd density management: During peak periods and events, monitor crowd density across the property to prevent dangerous overcrowding and ensure emergency egress routes remain clear.
• Tenant security reporting: Provide tenant retailers with traffic data and security analytics for their frontage — a value-added service that supports tenant satisfaction and lease renewals.

🔗 Retail Chains & Multi-Location Operations

Retail chains need consistent security across every location while managing from a central team:

• Standardized security policies: Deploy identical AI detection rules, alert thresholds, and response protocols across every location — ensuring consistent security regardless of local store management quality.
• Cross-location analytics: Compare shrinkage rates, incident volumes, and traffic patterns across locations to identify outliers and best practices. Which stores have the highest alert rates? Which have the best conversion ratios? Data-driven LP management.
• Regional LP efficiency: Regional loss prevention managers can remotely investigate alerts, review video, and manage incidents across 20+ stores from a single dashboard — eliminating the windshield time of driving between locations.
• New store deployment: Standardized Kognition deployment templates enable rapid security activation for new stores, remodels, and acquisitions.

💎 Luxury & Specialty Retail

High-value merchandise demands elevated security without compromising the customer experience:

• Discreet, non-intrusive security: AI-powered detection provides comprehensive security without visible guards, metal detectors, or locked display cases that degrade the luxury shopping experience.
• VIP recognition: Identify high-value customers upon arrival for personalized service — a security system that actually enhances customer experience.
• Display case monitoring: AI-powered monitoring of jewelry cases, watch displays, and other high-value presentation areas with immediate alerts for suspicious interaction patterns.

⚙️ Integration & Deployment

🔌 Any Camera, Every Store

Retail camera systems are notoriously heterogeneous — different stores have different cameras, often installed during different construction or remodel phases. Kognition works with any ONVIF camera, unifying your entire multi-vendor camera estate under a single AI platform. Axis, Hanwha, Bosch, Avigilon, Dahua, Hikvision — all work seamlessly.

🖥️ VMS Integration

Deep integration with Milestone XProtect enables Kognition’s AI events to appear in the Milestone Smart Client, alongside traditional video feeds, door events, and alarm conditions. For retailers already invested in Milestone, Kognition extends the platform’s intelligence without replacing it.

🏗️ Lenovo Hardware

Kognition runs on Lenovo ThinkEdge hardware, providing enterprise-grade GPU computing in a compact form factor that fits in retail back-office server closets. Each appliance handles multiple camera streams simultaneously, minimizing hardware footprint per store.

📐 Deployment at Scale

• Per-store edge processing: Each store runs its own Kognition appliance, ensuring operation even during WAN outages and minimizing bandwidth consumption.
• Centralized management: All stores report to a central dashboard for corporate and regional LP teams.
• Rapid rollout: Standardized deployment templates and remote configuration enable multi-store rollouts of 5-10 stores per week with minimal on-site time.

📊 The Business Case for AI-Powered Retail Security

• Shrinkage reduction: Proactive detection and deterrence reduce shrinkage by 25-40% in the first year for most retail deployments. On a $50M revenue store, a 1% shrinkage reduction represents $500,000 in recovered margin.
• LP team efficiency: AI-powered alerts enable LP teams to focus investigation time on real incidents rather than hours of video review. Regional LP managers can effectively cover 3-5x more stores.
• Traffic analytics ROI: People counting data alone justifies the investment for many retailers — enabling staffing optimization, marketing attribution, and real estate site selection that drive top-line revenue.
• Reduced guard costs: AI monitoring enables reduced guard hours while maintaining or improving security effectiveness. Many retailers reduce guard spending by 30-50%.
• Insurance benefits: AI-powered security systems with weapons detection capabilities often qualify for property and liability insurance premium reductions.
• Employee retention: Enhanced security measures — particularly weapons detection — improve employee perceptions of workplace safety, supporting recruitment and retention in a challenging labor market.

🤔 Why Kognition AI for Retail?

• Security + analytics in one platform: Loss prevention intelligence and traffic analytics from the same cameras, the same AI, the same dashboard. No separate analytics vendor required.
• Camera vendor agnostic: Works with every ONVIF camera across your entire store portfolio. No hardware replacement required.
• Multi-location management: Purpose-built for retail chains with centralized dashboards, cross-location analytics, and standardized deployment templates.
• ZeroEyes weapons detection: The only AI weapons detection with human verification, providing reliable protection in busy retail environments where false positives would be catastrophic.
• Proven in production: Approximately 100 deployments across demanding environments. Real-world performance, not demo-day promises.
• Rapid store deployment: Most single-store deployments are operational in one to two days. Multi-store rollouts at 5-10 stores per week.
• Actionable intelligence: Real-time alerts that enable intervention, not just forensic evidence that documents losses after the fact.

🚀 Getting Started

1. Pilot Store Assessment: We evaluate your camera infrastructure, LP priorities, and operational analytics needs at a representative store location.
2. Pilot Deployment: Deploy Kognition at 1-3 pilot stores, configuring People, Watchlist, Vehicles, and Threats applications based on your specific loss prevention and analytics requirements.
3. Results Validation: Over 30-60 days, measure shrinkage impact, alert accuracy, traffic analytics value, and operational efficiency gains.
4. Rollout Planning: Based on pilot results, develop a phased rollout plan across your store portfolio with standardized deployment templates.
5. Enterprise Deployment: Execute multi-store rollouts with centralized management, regional LP training, and ongoing optimization support.

Fight Shrinkage and Drive Traffic Insights with AI-Powered Security

See how Kognition AI is helping retailers reduce losses, optimize operations, and protect customers and employees — using existing camera systems across every store location.

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