Expanded ecosystem, open for integration: Verkada’s Oscar Popravka in an exclusive interview after Verkada One

Verkada held its annual flagship event Verkada One in Miami this year, and, as was expected from the innovator, unveiled a large number of new products, product lines and solutions to help Verkada users streamline workflows and integrate more functions. Shortly after the event, asmag spoke with Oscar Popravka, AI Analytics and Integrations Lead at Verkada, about the highlights.
 

What’s new at Verkada?

Since entering the video security market with its platform-based cloud solutions 10 years ago, Verkada has added product lines for Access Control, Intercom, Alarm, Air Quality, Workplace and Security Trailers to its portfolio. At Verkada One it unveiled its two latest lines—Sound Systems and Transportation.
 
The former enables users to integrate voice notifications and other audio functions to their security posture, but also utilize their Verkada systems beyond security, for example to stream music to retail stores of the same chain regardless of location. Transportation, meanwhile, includes three ruggedized camera models, a 5G and Wi-Fi vehicle gateway, integration with vehicle diagnostics and an enhanced experience of Command—Verkada’s unified cloud security platform.
 
On the one hand, this further expands Verkada’s ecosystem within and beyond security, on the other hand the company continues to build on its open approach to Command, enabling deeper integration with edge devices and solutions by other vendors.
 
"Verkada One was an incredibly exciting moment for us, with new products across the board. At the same time, a big part of the story is how customers can bring the infrastructure they already have into Verkada and build integrations on our platform. Openness has always been part of our vision, and VerkadaOne showed how far we’ve taken it,” said Popravka.
 
"We want customers to feel that they have a choice. If you already have cameras in place, you should be able to still get the benefits of Verkada's AI, without ripping everything out at once," he added.
 
Central to the expanded openness of Verkada system is Command Connector, launched in 2024, which enables users to bring streams from third-party cameras into the platform, while integrations with identity providers such as Okta and Microsoft Entra ID, or Apple Wallet for access control, connect Command to systems customers already use. At Verkada One, the company also unveiled a Skydio drone integration, and it also rebuilt its API endpoints across all products, standardizing elements such as site IDs, naming conventions and timestamps.
 
“Our portfolio has expanded significantly, it was the right time to standardize our APIs across products and create a new API version built to help integration developers. We want developers to feel like building on top of Verkada is almost as simple as using it natively – and it’s been amazing to see what our customers are already doing. Tasty Xpress, which runs self-service micro-markets across Australia, built an integration between Command and their point-of-sale system that flags footage if someone walks in and doesn’t complete a purchase. They even discovered that some failed payments were really checkout friction, and redesigned their POS because of it,” Popravka said.
 

The next frontier: Integration of user-facing AIs and beyond

Integration of legacy hardware and solutions across vendor boundaries has been a central concern within the industry for decades. The general integration question, however, has become all the more urgent with the more recent advent of AI.
 
Verkada therefore introduced Catalyst, now in private beta, a read-only Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration for Command, enabling customers to connect approved third-party AI platforms like Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini. MCPs—a concept that is genuinely new in physical security—offer a standardized way to connect to external software, data and tools, instead of requiring a custom integration for every combination. A system that offers an MCP connection exposes a tightly governed part of its data and functions to that AI, which can then query it in natural language.
 
"There’s a lot of valuable insight in a security system that teams haven’t always had an easy way to tap into. Catalyst really changes the game by allowing customers to ask questions about their Verkada environment in plain language, right from the AI tools they already use. It’s still early, but we're already seeing teams build workflows in minutes, like confirming shelves are stocked or creating custom reports for their fleet health,” Popravka explained.
 
When asked whether Catalyst is Verkada’s answer to cybersecurity and operational risks that come with the piecemeal integration of AI practiced in many organizations, Popravka said Verkada chose a careful approach deliberately.
 
“We’re taking a deliberate, step-by-step approach. It’s currently read-only and connects to approved AI platforms like Claude and ChatGPT. We’re onboarding customers in phases, with security testing built into every stage before we expand access.," Popravka said.
 
So far, Catalyst is not meant to function as an access point for other third-party AI, for example custom agents developed by boutique vendors to serve the specific needs of individual organizations.
 
“Customers trust us with highly sensitive data, so security has to come first,” Popravka stated. “Every step we take with Catalyst is designed to keep customers in control of their data and how it’s used.”
 

Outlook: A slight shift in the Verkada philosophy?

While new product lines complement the company’s portfolio, standardized APIs and Catalyst put Verkada’s Command platform at the center of an increasingly open ecosystem. Popravka described the strategy in practical terms: "We're not trying to build everything. We want customers to get the insights, safety and operational intelligence they need, and what powers it all is Command, whether the device at the edge is a Verkada camera or from another brand."