ADT announced a new acquisition on Tuesday that may be of interest to those looking to the future. home security — And it’s no surprise that AI is part of this story. In a $170 million deal, ADT has acquired Origin AI, which specializes in detecting people inside homes and other spaces. Security companies call this AI sensing technology.
ADT has not disclosed specific plans for its AI technology, but the announcement comes at a time when concerns about corporate surveillance by companies like Ring and Flock are at a fever pitch.
“ADT has been testing and evaluating Origin’s technology prior to acquiring it,” ADT Chief Business Officer Omar Khan told me. “In 2026, the focus will be on integrating this technology into ADT’s platform, with commercialization expected to begin in 2027.”
Presence sensing is not something you create a chatty overview of large language model We’re considering AI these days, and we’re not even considering the person and vehicle recognition capabilities that companies like Flock are using. This is a system that analyzes your home’s Wi-Fi frequencies for interference. This AI is trained in pattern recognition to identify what disturbances indicate a human being home (ignoring pets) and what the human is doing.
This technology has appeared in many places over the past few years. I’ve seen it before Aging in place technology and Philips Hue’s latest smart light bulbsbut recently Aqara’s sensors at CES 2026can detect when multiple people are gathered together, standing, sitting, or lying down.
How does presence sensing affect people’s privacy?
Such AI sensing has both privacy benefits and concerns.
It’s unclear how ADT will use Origin’s presence sensing in its home security systems, but the company has mentioned smart automation, personalization, and reducing false alarms. In one example, ADT can automatically adjust supported settings. thermostat If multiple people are detected moving around your home. But it also raises privacy issues.
Like Origin’s technology, presence sensing has privacy benefits. We do not use cameras to film anyone or save video recordings. We also do not create identity profiles based on your personal information. on someone’s face or other data. There is no way to know who is in the house. All you need to know is where they are, how and when they are moving around (or not).
This enables features such as notifying a nursing home that a resident is not normally getting out of bed without an intrusive inspection. However, this technology also raises privacy concerns. Even if you can’t identify them by name, companies might be able to tell when people in your home are in bed, watching TV, or sitting down to eat dinner.
ADT calls for features such as household awareness, but also mentions municipal compliance and coordination with first responders. That could mean providing firefighters with information about how many people are inside a burning building. But there are also concerns. Recent reports indicate that some local law enforcement agencies are sharing information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for use in raids on homes and apartments, raising the possibility that the technology will be applied in similar situations.
The impact of this technology may ultimately depend on how ADT chooses to implement and regulate it. Until these details become clearer, expectations and risks will remain closely intertwined.
