In 2011, a San Francisco startup called Prism Skylabs took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt with a new idea: plug into a retailer’s existing video surveillance cameras and use computer vision to analyze foot traffic, dwell time, and queue lengths. Turn security footage into business intelligence. Move cameras from a cost center to a profit center. Andreessen Horowitz and Intel Capital invested $22.5 million. The company has unfortunately faded from the market. 15 years later, the same promise echoes across a global video surveillance industry now worth $35.5 billion. But something has shifted. Computer vision is finally delivering real operational value through installed cameras, and simultaneously breaking free of the camera altogether. Where the Surveillance Industry Is Getting It Right Video surveillance vendors are actively pushing cameras beyond security into operational and industrial territory, and doing it with real customers at real scale. At Nestlé, over 600 Axis Communications cameras are deployed across 22 production […]