“Leveraging strategic human capabilities in an AI-driven world.”
Those words flashed across the auditorium at the end of a video montage signaling the start of ASIS International’s Global Security Exchange (GSX) 2025. The opening keynote remarks from ASIS International Chair Joe Olivarez noted how artificial intelligence (AI) has fundamentally changed corporate security and will continue to accelerate change in the next 10 years.
ASIS International has long been a steward of change. Every September, the security world gathers for GSX and this year New Orleans played the host city as ASIS International celebrated its 70th anniversary. Dataminr joined more than 15,000 security professionals and over 500 exhibitors to share insights, discuss emerging trends, and explore the latest developments and technologies.
AI was a central theme across more than 30 speaking sessions and featured prominently in booths across the exhibition hall during the conference. With more than 200 educational sessions, the conversations and topics stretched well beyond AI to cover a range of technologies and challenges faced by corporate security teams today.
While it’s impossible to capture everything that GSX 2025 had to offer in a single blog post, here we’ll highlight five trends and themes that stood out at the conference.
Takeaway No. 1: Agentic AI is Moving from Theoretical to Practical
Perhaps no topic generated more discussion, booth messaging, or forward-looking strategy at GSX 2025 than AI. The day two keynote presentation, “The AI-Powered Security Paradigm,” delivered by Sol Rashidi, best-selling AI author with 10 patents and former Fortune 100 executive, highlighted several key insights for security leaders. Two that stood out in particular: AI must be viewed as a tool to amplify human capabilities and not replace people; and successful adoption of AI hinges on robust workforce preparation and strong data governance/management.
Beyond the keynote, the conversation around AI in corporate security has seemed to mature beyond theoretical concepts and is now viewed as an immediate, practical tool helping teams work more efficiently and improve people safety.
There was also a noticeable shift from basic AI concepts to agentic AI. The emergence of this technology across a range of products–from cameras and access control to identity management and intelligence–all aimed at supporting security teams with autonomous retrieval and assessment of information.
Agentic AI’s potential to act as a force multiplier was the topic of a packed panel presentation from Dataminr alongside CDW, and partners Genetec and Esri. The discussion touched on the complexities of implementation, adapting operations to new workflows, and leveraging this next generation of intelligence to accelerate a proactive response.
Takeaway No. 2: Ongoing Geopolitical Uncertainty Requires Real-Time Risk Mitigation
Amid the technical discussions and focus on AI, another topic of strategic risk also featured prominently in more than 10 sessions during GSX: geopolitical tension. This challenge is not just reserved for large, multinational organizations. The globalization of trade and interconnectedness of business means companies of all sizes can be significantly impacted by volatile global events.
The day one keynote presentation, “The New Abnormal: Who Are the Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World?” delivered by Ian Bremmer, President and Founder of the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, focused entirely on this challenge. The main takeaway was not that we should brace for a single major conflict, but rather prepare for a sustained environment of flux and uncertainty where conflicts and risks rapidly change. This instability requires agile programs that provide real-time intelligence for constant, proactive global risk mitigation and ensure global people safety and business continuity.
Takeaway No. 3: Flexibility and Adaptability are Cornerstones of Organizational Resilience
Another theme running through GSX 2025 was the expansion of corporate security’s strategic mandate. Security teams are moving beyond the traditional mandate of safeguarding people and locations to ensuring the security of revenue-generating business functions to support organizational resilience.
According to ASIS, organizational resilience is not only about bouncing back from challenges and crisis situations. It is about building the capacity in your organization, business, or city to change and adapt in the face of adversity.
ASIS set up a Resilience Zone on the GSX show floor to give attendees a dedicated space to hear from experts and vendors who are leading the way in helping organizations remain flexible and adaptable, and instill operational and cultural changes that keep business thriving. Topics included security operations, organizational culture, cybersecurity, school safety, and public-private collaboration.
Takeaway No. 4: Threats are Converging Across Physical and Cyber Domains
The topic of the converged risk landscape (AKA: cyber-physical convergence) continues to gain traction. With more than 30 sessions touching on cybersecurity and approximately 10 focused on cross-domain threats, the conversations have shifted from theoretical to practical.
One panel session in particular discussed addressing the converged risk landscape as a mindset, rather than convergence of an organizational structure. The speakers with varying physical security and cybersecurity leadership backgrounds focused on cooperation and strategy with unified goals and strategies for identifying, preventing, and mitigating risks across both domains, regardless of whether they report to the same leader.
Takeaway No. 5: Modern Strategies for Specialized Security Programs
Several security programs and initiatives that require specialized considerations also featured through the educational sessions and on the exhibition floor at GSX 2025. With global instability, people safety, and the need for business continuity as a backdrop, these specialized areas included:
- Executive Protection: High-profile threats and global complexity have driven a renewed focus on safeguarding key personnel and corporate assets, and more than 10 sessions were dedicated to improving this discipline.
- Travel Security: Directly tied to geopolitical uncertainty, ensuring the safety of employees traveling globally was a prominent concern, with several dedicated sessions.
- Major Event Security: Planning for and mitigating risks associated with large corporate gatherings and public events was another specialized focus area.
- School Safety: ASIS set up a dedicated School Security Zone on the show floor to showcase how government, law enforcement, and community organizations are collaborating to equip schools with resources for prevention, protection, and mitigation of security threats in schools.
Looking Ahead
The key takeaway from GSX 2025 is not simply a list of technologies or threats, but a clear confirmation of corporate security’s strategic evolution. The conference solidified the idea that security leaders must be architects of organizational resilience, capable of navigating geopolitical uncertainty and championing new technologies like agentic AI.
The message from the ASIS leadership was clear: the next decade will change things more than we’ve ever seen before, but change also brings significant opportunities. The leaders of tomorrow are those who understand how to translate risk and continue to position security as a value creator for the entire organization.
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