AI-Powered Security & Analytics 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.

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.

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.