Closed circuit television (CCTV) has been around for decades and has become an important technology for security agencies, police, and transportation agencies.
Airports, shopping centers, and city center business districts currently have hundreds, if not thousands, of surveillance cameras installed, but the management and use of that technology has been a laggard.
For example, finding a shoplifter or analyzing an accident requires reviewing historical video footage, no matter how recent.
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is a game-changer for video, and just as written data is transformed into AI applications through large language models (LLMs), video providers are using vision language models (VLMs) to treat images as data.
This enables a solution that can analyze hours of footage from a large number of cameras. Previously, tasks performed by humans took hours.
Applications can also be moved to real-time using predictive applications.
Generative AI features
One of the leaders in new video capabilities, Milestone Systems was founded in Denmark in 1998 and has grown with advances in video technology.
In April 2025, Milestone acquired Berlin-based technology company Brighter AI to provide new generative AI capabilities through Project Hafnia. The platform provides instant access to a library of ethically sourced annotated videos, along with new developer tools.
Milestone’s chief revenue officer, Morten Illum, recently traveled to Australia to meet with customers and explain how they can apply the capabilities of the new technology.
“What we’re seeing is a huge demand for a more aggressive transition to video,” Illum said.
“It spans multiple sectors. From retail to hospitality to law enforcement, video can now be used to prevent things from happening or to avoid them when they happen.”
Import videos as data
AI capabilities begin by simplifying and reducing the time required to perform traditional tasks.
“Say you run a large airport and someone comes on shift in the morning and their job is to look at hundreds of cameras and see what’s happened in the last six hours,” Illum said.
“All you have to do is say, ‘What do I need to know, what do I need to do, what do I need cleaning crew assistance or security assessment for?’” The video is captured as data and processed by VLM so it’s immediately available. ”
“There is a huge demand for a more aggressive transition to video.” – Morten Illum, Chief Revenue Officer, Milestone
There is also a predictive prevention function. Airports have protocols for how equipment such as baggage handling and refueling facilities should be placed on the tarmac.
Using rigorous rules-based analysis, video systems can now detect when equipment is misplaced or when a dangerous situation or potential accident is about to occur.
managing crowd hazards
This can also be applied to crowd management. If there are bottlenecks or potentially dangerous congestion in certain areas of your facility, the system can identify the hazard before the problem escalates.
If a child gets lost at the airport in real-time, a brief description of the child, including keywords, can be entered into the system, allowing a human operator to find it much faster than traditional methods of scanning multiple screens.
A new development in this system is the Hafnia plug, which automatically converts videos into short, descriptive text of the action and can be sent by email.
“If you need to send someone a description of what happened, instead of scrolling through the video and writing it down, you can shoot the video, send it to our engine, and it will give you a text summary,” Illum said.
Illum is at pains to point out that Milestone has prioritized the ethical sourcing and use of video to avoid violating privacy regulations.
Videos are anonymized using the power of better AI, and the solution uses generative AI to redact personal identifying information such as faces, license plates, and full bodies.
Illum says this effort is just getting started with new features, and Milestone’s open platform software will allow customers and collaborators to develop their own applications.
“These are very exciting times in our industry,” he said.
“We remain open and committed to providing a platform that helps move the industry forward.”
Image credit: iStockphoto/R_type
