Exclusive interview: CHeKT bridges AI innovation and alarm monitoring workflows with vendor-neutral proactive visual security platform

Many companies in the physical security space have origin stories centered on technological ingenuity: Their founders saw a technological possibility on the one hand and a potential benefit for customers on the other. They just had to bring them together in a market-ready solution.
 
The origin story of CHeKT, as told by its President, Wes Usie, is different. Before founding CHeKT, a proactive visual security provider offering tailormade platform solutions, Usie had been involved in the alarm monitoring sector for decades—ever since the days of simpler technology, with analogue sensors hardwired to monitoring centers where operators made case-by-case decisions whether or not to dispatch law enforcement. While those decisions were initially based on limited information and required seasoned professionals to make the call, the subsequent emergence of video verification unlocked new possibilities. However, it also widened the rift between technological innovation and time-tested workflows.
 
In times of AI and disruptive innovation at a degree never seen before, CHeKT’s value proposition is centered on the reliable delivery of information—alarm sensor data, video feeds, AI-generated event tags, etc.—to the monitoring center. Its platform-based solutions are built around highly standardized workflows and operating procedures of monitoring centers, and orchestrate inputs from disparate sources into a single, coherent interface that operators can act on without switching between systems or relearning tools every time a vendor updates their UI.
 
This is especially beneficial as the security industry is being inundated with new technology—new AI models and agents, camera analytics, and other innovations. CHeKT brings them all together into a seamless workflow that allows dealers to deploy the best technologies while letting monitoring centers operate much the way they have for decades through a single, standardized interface.
 

“Our vendor-neutral platform has APIs for all kinds of data streams,” Usie explained. “We provide ‘last-mile delivery’ for all information that operators in alarm monitoring centers need, including all kinds of AI models, such as gun detection.”
 
The company’s Proactive Visual Security platform acts as the cloud-based integration layer of CHeKT systems. It offers hundreds of integration options with camera vendors, including Alarm.com (CHeKT’s parent company), Axis Communications, Hanwha and Hikvision, as well as a long list of AI and automation partners. Its proprietary hardware includes the CHeKT Video Control Panel, which acts as the central hardware hub for its systems, but also AI servers, video security cameras and IP speakers.
 

Lifting AI to the standard of alarm monitoring

Seen from the perspective of monitoring centers, CHeKT unlocks technologies that were previously unavailable or unsuitable for them. After all, monitoring centers have very specific operational needs that have to be met before any new AI can be implemented—regardless of the accuracy claims of the respective AI company.
 
“Let's not just talk about the magic of what it can do—let's talk about where AI breaks down and understand how to responsibly address that, because if we don't, it's going to become very problematic,” Usie said. "Understanding the limitations of the technology is equally as important as the technology itself. The focus cannot only be on the accuracy any given AI has achieved in a lab test. In real-life scenarios, the stakes are too high."
 
“Monitoring centers need fail-safe automation,” Usie stated, adding that the aim is not to “take the human out of the loop,” but give operators a greater degree of awareness, with AI as a highly potent tool that, nonetheless, relies on human judgement.
 
“Imagine this scenario: An event is being detected and the system automatically seeks to verify it via AI-powered video analytics, but the AI gives no (or no conclusive) answer,” Usie explained. “In that case, we send the event and all available information to the operator. It’s because liability is an important factor for alarm monitoring companies. Any single AI can only be deployed if the liability question is answered beforehand.”
 
“Not many technology companies have considered that the operators in an alarm monitoring center need a single interface that meets the standards and requirements of the industry,” Usie said, highlighting that the level of workflow standardization is different in video security and alarm verification.
 
“Only now are we beginning to see standardization emerge in the video monitoring space; we are beginning to see standardized training, for example,” he stated. “This means the highly standardized alarm industry meets the ‘Wild Wild West’ of video monitoring and AI.”
 
The standardization of the alarm industry, however, still allows for solutions based on the latest advancements in technology. It only has to be integrated in a way that doesn’t disrupt established workflows.
 

Technology attuned to cognitive abilities

CHeKT’s alarm workflow-based UX design philosophy extends into granular details. When an event is pushed to the Monitoring Portal, the platform automatically draws a bounding box around the detected subject, directing the operator's attention without requiring them to scan the full frame. Default clip playback speed is set to 3x, which allows operators to get an idea of what has happened quickly without overstretching their cognitive abilities.
 
The platform also handles matching at the dispatch level: In parts of the US where a monitoring center serves Spanish-speaking clients, for example, CHeKT can route events to operators who speak the language—ensuring that the communication chain holds even in high-stress, time-critical moments.
 

Disruption-free business opportunities

While operators benefit from workflow optimization and access to new technologies, integrators of CHeKT systems can benefit from recurring revenue.
 
“Integrators are increasingly focused on generating recurring revenue," he observed. "However, you'll never meet an industry more reluctant to pay for recurring revenue than the companies that benefit most from it, including end users and chain players."
 
"If you see AI as a dollar and traditional alarm systems as a nickel, and they’re both on the ground in front of you, you should pick them both up," he added.
 
The same logic applies to adjacent markets: In regions where the guard service sector is mature, but services are legally constrained to an observe-and-report role, cameras and AI integrated alarm systems can absorb much of that function at a fraction of the cost, with none of the turnover.
 
"The need for security has never been greater, but how we provide security is inevitably going to change. If you embrace that, you'll get up each day excited about figuring out how to adapt your business,” Usie concluded. “If you don't, you'll not be able to harness the change, and the industry is going to change without you."