Latest / The TechTrends Podcast / The TechTrends Podcast | Ethical AI, Unified Platforms & the Next Era of Global Security ft Andrew Elvish from Genetec

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The TechTrends Podcast | Ethical AI, Unified Platforms & the Next Era of Global Security ft Andrew Elvish from Genetec · The TechTrends Podcast

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  This is the Tech Trans Podcast. You go to podcast for the latest
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  in tech innovation and the digital world.
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  Hello and welcome to Tech Friends Charts.
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  Today we are coming to you from Intersect 2026, one of the
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  world's most influential gatherings for security, safety,
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  and resilience technologies. As artificial intelligence,
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  analytics, and unified platforms rapidly reshape the physical
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  security landscape, organizations across Africa, the
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  Middle East and beyond are rethinking how they protect
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  people, assets, and critical infrastructure.
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  In this interview, we are joined by Andrew Elvis, Vice President
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  of Global Marketing, The Genetic, a global leader in
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  unified physical security software.
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  Andrew shares insights on how Genetech is applying AI
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  responsibly, why unified platforms are becoming essential
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  for modern enterprises, and what's the latest trends mean
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  for fast growing regions like Africa where infrastructure
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  investment, urbanization and digital transformation are
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  accelerating at scale. From ethical AI governance and
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  cloud resilience to real world use cases in energy retail and
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  smart infrastructure, this conversation goes beyond hype to
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  focus on outcomes that truly matter.
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  Listen in. My name is Andrew Elvish.
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  I am the Vice President of Global Marketing at Genentech.
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  I've been with the company for 14 years and have been
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  overseeing all of our product marketing, public relations,
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  outbound messaging, our events like this show here at Intersect
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  and all of our global marketing efforts across the world.
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  Thank you so much. So to our first question, at
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  Intersect 2026, Genetech is showcasing enhanced analytics
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  and vehicle intelligence features.
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  What trends do these demos highlight for the broader
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  security industry? I think the big trends that
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  we're we're highlighting and our innovation sort of responds to
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  in many ways is a desire for, you know, product innovation
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  that really resonates with the outcomes our end users are
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  after. So often tech companies create
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  innovation for the sake of innovation and they're sort of
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  like solutions looking for a problem.
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  Genentech really takes the alternate approach, and we
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  really want to solve those challenges that end users face
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  in their operations. So here at the show, especially
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  around artificial intelligence, we've taken the view that, you
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  know, artificial intelligence is a great tool, but it's only a
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  tool and you need to understand what sort of problems you want
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  to solve with that tool. And here in our booth at the
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  show, what we're talking about is really how artificial
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  intelligence can really change the investigations workflow.
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  Investigations typically can take upwards of 10/12/15 hours
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  for a complex investigation to be put together and given to the
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  authorities or to leadership within a company such that, you
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  know, you can say, OK, we've investigated this.
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  And we got to the conclusion what we wanted to do is we want
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  to leverage artificial intelligence to deliver that
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  innovation there, to deliver that outcome of a, you know,
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  completed investigation more quickly.
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  So now we could do it in a matter of 5 or 10 minutes, which
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  is a massive time savings. And when you're trying to, you
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  know, manage an incident, every second counts.
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  So you want to be sure that your investigation can get done
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  quickly and you can get that data to the investigators, the
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  police, or whatever needs to be done.
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  So faster is better. And we've leveraged innovation
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  there such that you can go through massive amounts of video
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  surveillance data in the blink of an eye.
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  That's what AI is really, really good.
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  Humans are terrible at that because we get tired, we lose
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  attention over time. When we get thirsty, we have,
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  you know, we have to take a washroom break.
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  These are problems that interrupt our flow of attention.
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  But AI is very good at being attentive to massive amounts of
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  data so that they can leverage that capability so that they
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  will be able to find that needle in a haystack for you.
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  Now, what differentiates Genetech is that some other, you
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  know, solutions out there will go all the way and AI will
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  decide what to do with the needle in the in a haystack and
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  how to take care of it. We don't believe that's the best
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  way to do it. We believe we're going to find
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  the needle in the haystack using our artificial intelligence and
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  surface it to the security operator who will know what to
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  do with it. Because sometimes not every
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  incident requires the same response.
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  So you have to have an intelligent, an intelligent
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  automation and a way to respond to those incidents.
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  So we really leverage the security operator in these sorts
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  of situations. Thank you.
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  The 2026 State of Physical Physical report State of
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  Physical Security report mentioned that while interest in
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  AI has doubled, 70% of respondents expressed concerns
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  about data use and privacy. How is Genetic bridging this gap
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  between the demand for automation and the need for
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  ethical AI governance? This is a huge tension right now
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  in especially in the physical security space because we deal
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  with such sensitive data, video surveillance, access control,
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  license plate recognition, intercom recordings, you know,
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  they, these are critical path to people's lives and safety.
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  So using artificial intelligence has to be done in a responsible
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  way. And Genetech has been very
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  focused on the responsible implementation of artificial
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  intelligence. We have an entire team dedicated
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  to the responsible development of AI.
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  And I think the big questions we're asking are around
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  transparency. How can we deliver transparency
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  to our customers such that so 70% channel partners and end
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  users who have concerns about AI can put their minds at rest?
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  So when we say we're transparent, we're talking about
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  which kind of data sets have we used to train our artificial
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  intelligence? What sort of parameters have we
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  put in or guard rails for the AI such that you can't use
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  artificial intelligence in the security center platform to do
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  things that are not within the realm of what you should be
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  doing in it. But also, where are we getting
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  our training sets from? Many companies don't really
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  understand where their training sets are coming from.
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  And those training sets could be illegal, they could be stolen or
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  plagiarized. And if, for instance, A vendor
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  gets blocked their access to a training set and users will lose
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  their investment in that technology.
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  So a responsible approach to artificial intelligence is
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  absolutely critical. And also and finally, physical
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  security professionals don't want, you know, an unknown black
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  box system where you know, some decision pops out, you know, you
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  ask a question, some decision pops out and you have no idea
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  how it achieved that decision. That's absolutely antithetical
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  to what we're doing at Genetech. We want to make it transparent,
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  understandable, and something that you can communicate and
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  really get your arms around. So we see AI as a way to make
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  security professionals more efficient, more high
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  performance, but we don't see it as a replacement for human
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  security professionals. Interestingly, the state of the
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  physical security report shows that 73% of end users now
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  prioritize vendor stability and long term viability of a product
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  price. What does this shift tell us
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  about the current risk appetite for of global enterprises?
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  I think this indicates a lot of, There's one really big thing I
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  would say, and that's the maturity of the physical
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  security end user. You know, you look at the people
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  who are buying physical security systems now and implementing
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  them around the world. They're much more sophisticated
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  than they were even 5 or 10 years ago.
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  And what what we're seeing is that they realize that, you
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  know, just because a company puts out a press release that
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  seems, you know, really exciting and snazzy, that doesn't replace
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  the fact that maybe that company hasn't been around very long.
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  Maybe it's owned by a bunch of venture capital companies.
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  Who knows what they're going to do with the money.
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  Maybe they have a ton of debt and they're burning through
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  cash. And gosh, what's going to happen
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  to my investment? Physical security professionals
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  have realized that what they need to look for is a partner.
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  They need to look for companies that have been around that have
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  understood and invested in the markets that they're working in.
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  For example, Genentech. You know, we're coming up on 30
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  years in this industry and over over 30 years we've done, you
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  know, work on every continent with organizations large and
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  small, with governments, with all sorts of users.
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  And all of that experience has fed into the product that we
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  bring to market today. And you can't buy that no matter
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  how much money you get from investors or from the stock
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  market, you can't buy the experience and market knowledge
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  that Genentech has just from being in the market for as long
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  as we have. What do analytics and artificial
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  intelligence now run among the top projects priorities?
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  This is a really interesting thing.
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  Every year when we run our state of physical security report, I
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  get a look at the data earlier and this was a big change.
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  In the past, users have prioritized access control
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  modernization as their number one investment for the coming
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  year. And usually number 2 was video
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  surveillance, modernization, new cameras, new BMS is new
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  archiving systems, new hardware, stuff like that.
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  But this year, artificial intelligence, which was down at
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  #5 or 6 last year as a priority, jumped all the way up to #2 And
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  I think there's a few things at play there.
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  One is I think there's just a lot of noise in the market right
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  now. Everybody's very excited.
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  There's a lot of investment going on.
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  It's in the news every night. So people are sensitized to AI.
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  And I think that's the least valuable reason for its change.
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  Because I don't think people should invest money based on
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  height. It's not a durable investment
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  strategy. But underlying that is a more
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  fundamental thing. And that is that artificial
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  intelligence tools such as large language models have become much
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  more performant over the last year to 18 months.
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  And we're seeing that people are seeing the benefits of it.
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  As I mentioned earlier about investigations, they're seeing
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  how it could really speed things along.
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  They're also seeing how, you know, chat based interfaces open
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  up a complex piece of software like Genentech Security Center,
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  how that makes it more accessible to people who may not
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  in the past have been able to interact with software like
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  Genetech Security Center, but now with a chat based interface,
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  it's much more natural. They could do it in their native
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  languages. They, you know, doesn't matter,
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  you know, sort of their education level, as long as they
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  can communicate, even verbally, they can interact with the
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  system. So I can see why it moved to #2
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  as in terms of investment priorities.
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  And people always have to challenge themselves about, am I
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  doing this because I'm, you know, reading it in The
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  Economist and hearing a lot of hype on podcasts about the about
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  AI, or am I doing it for the really valuable, you know, gains
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  in terms of efficiency and operational insights that it
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  will deliver? What global patterns are driving
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  organizations to replace legacy security systems in favour of
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  unified approaches? The world is getting
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  unfortunately, more dangerous and more complex at the same
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  time. And I think security is right on
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  the edge of organizations. Organizations rely on their
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  physical security and IT teams to keep the assets, the people,
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  the business safe. I mean, that's one of the
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  functions of and not the only bunch, but it's definitely one
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  of the big functions of the physical security team and what
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  we've noticed and why we're finding that people are adopting
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  Genentech Security Center in ever greater numbers.
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  I mean, we're the leading platform in the world.
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  What we've found is the reason why they want a unified platform
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  is because trying to train people on multiple different
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  softwares is time consuming. But more importantly, when
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  you're dealing with a serious situation, security breach, you
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  know something going wrong that you didn't expect or just really
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  trying to do your job. You don't want to be navigating
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  between 4 different pieces of software that are all different,
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  that have all different ways of working.
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  Think back to my example of an investigation, trying to do an
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  investigation across the four or five disparate software systems
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  to do a physical security investigation.
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  Not only will it be super time consuming, it's going to be
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  difficult to get all of that, that evidence into one package.
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  So what we say is yes, take an approach that's very, you know,
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  open, mixed-use all sorts of different cameras, all sorts of
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  different access control intercoms, choose whatever you
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  like, but the software that runs them should be a unified
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  platform so that you can get a better picture of what's going
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  on through a single pane of glass.
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  This is the reason why more and more people have been adopting
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  and it's the reason why we believe that security is getting
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  better and more performant and more operationally efficient is
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  because they're bringing on unified platforms.
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  You've noted that security is evolving from a cost center to a
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  business enabler. Can you share a concrete example
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  of how an organization has used unified platform by Genetic to
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  improve non security outcomes such as operational efficiency
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  and energy management? I think that that's a really
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  excellent question. And I mean there's multitudes of
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  different ways that people are leveraging unified platforms to
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  gain deeper insight into what's going on in their organization.
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  You know, if you go back to sort of things like cyber security,
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  this is an excellent example of where logical and physical
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  security can come together and work together as one.
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  For example, say you know, to get to your computer at your
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  office, you have to badge in to your office and then go sit at
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  your computer and login. That's a normal day for you.
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  But what if we because we have aligned physical security and
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  logical security, so your access control and your computer login
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  to say, wait a second, Patrick didn't badge into the door, but
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  he's logging into his computer, which is behind an access
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  control door. We would block access to your
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  computer because we know that somebody is trying to spoof you
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  or somebody who's not you is trying to log into your
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  computer. So, you know, when you start
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  getting into these unified things, you get benefit of
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  greater safety because you can understand what's going on from
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  an energy efficiencies perspective.
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  I mean, because we're getting much more integrated with HR
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  management systems or HRMS systems, you can leverage access
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  control to understand when people are using conference
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  rooms, when people are using different parts of your office.
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  Who is doing it, Which team? We've worked with a global Agri
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  food company that had massive real estate all around the
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  world, very expensive, using lots of energy.
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  All of these facilities were there until they leverage their
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  physical security system and their HR system to understand
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  that a lot of these facilities were not optimally used and they
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  were able to close down several of those facilities without
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  impacting their employees. So that's a massive savings from
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  an energy and resource perspective.
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  But also for the Agri food company that I'm talking about,
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  it saved them millions of dollars in leases and, you know,
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  offices that weren't being fully utilized.
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  So this gives you a lot, but just an idea of, you know, what
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  can happen when you unify things.
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  I'll give you one more funny example.
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  So we, we work with many very large scale retailers around the
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  world. And one retailer came to us with
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  a problem. They said people are stealing
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  lampshades. We're like, people are stealing
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  what lampshades. And we said, I mean, who's
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  stealing lampshades? Nobody wants a lampshade.
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  I don't go stealing lampshades. And people steal iPads and all
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  that stuff, but not lampshades. And we said, OK, well, we'll do
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  something because we, because of a, we're a unified system.
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  We actually ingest, that's their point of sale system.
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  So we can look at receipts right as they're happening.
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  And we have a video camera on the till.
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  So as things are being rung up, we can see what's happening.
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  Well, what was happening was people were coming up to the
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  counter to check out from the store and they'd bring a lamp up
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  and the, the person at the counter would scan the lamp and
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  they would go off. But what we realized was the
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  salesperson was not real, realizing that the lampshade and
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  the lamp base were sold separately.
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  So what we did on the POS system is raise an alarm that says
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  remember to scan the lampshade. So nobody was stealing them.
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  It was just they were forgetting to scan them.
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  And because we had video surveillance and the POS system
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  unified, we were able to solve the case of the stolen
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  lampshades. And it wasn't trivial.
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  It's a very big store. So across their, you know,
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  global operations, a real lamp, it's going missing.
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  So you can imagine how this helps.
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  So how do security technology trends differ across regions,
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  especially between Africa and the Middle East?
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  Well, I think technology trends and differences in between
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  Africa and the Middle East are quite different.
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  I think Africa is going through what I would call a leapfrog
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  phase where, you know, the the investment is happening now such
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  that they can avoid some of the mistakes stakes that were made
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  between, you know, 2010 and 2018 when people were installing a
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  lot of unsafe devices that were sort of cyber security risks.
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  Right now, I think the maturity around IT, around physical
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  security and how that's going to help build, you know, a strong
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  modern future facing infrastructure on the continent
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  of Africa is really in a great position because now the
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  investment is being made in sort of long term vision, cyber
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  secure, privacy first, really smart solutions.
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  And I think they've, you know, don't have as much baggage from
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  a period where sort of there were a lot of vendors going into
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  the market giving away free products that were in the end
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  super insecure and caused a lot of cyber risk for the end users.
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  So I think right now because of this leapfrog phase, we're
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  seeing the, you know, countries on the African continent make
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  much more savvy decisions about technology, moving towards
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  meaningful investments, working with trusted camera partners,
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  trusted access control partners and all the way on down the
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  line. And I think that's going to make
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  a big difference for how the tech, you know, sort of
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  landscape of the countries in the continent of Africa move in
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  the future. So in many African markets
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  organizations are jumping straight from systems to high
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  end cloud solutions. How the security centre as as
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  cater to regions where infrastructure like consistent
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  high speed Internet might still be a challenge?
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  This. Is a great question.
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  Africa is not the only continent or countries in Africa are not
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  the only countries that are dealing with this, you know,
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  utilities, access to the Internet.
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  It goes down for all sorts of reasons all around the world,
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  yes, with more frequency in some regions because of the, you
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  know, reliability of the network, because of, you know,
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  geopolitical reasons. But what we've found and the way
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  we've designed our system is really around this idea of, you
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  know, how can we design a system that takes all the goodness of
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  the cloud but can survive a partition?
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  And when we say a partition, that means the Internet goes
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  down, your ISP isn't available, and maybe it'll have power
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  outage. How can we design a system that
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  really still allows, you know, end users who want all the
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  goodness of the cloud like access to, you know, updates,
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  automatic updates, remote management, especially if you're
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  looking at places where you're putting video surveillance and
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  access control in remote sites like an oil past pipeline or
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  whatever it may be. We've designed something called
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  the cloud link 210 and its main purpose is really to act as a
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  base station. It's resilient and it's you
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  know, we'll, it will buffer if there's a partition with the
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  network. So it will keep on going.
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  Everything will keep on working at your remote site.
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  So access control doors will open, they'll record and check
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  on cards. Video surveillance will continue
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  to be recorded. Actions, alarms, intercom, it'll
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  all continue to work. But when the partition is
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  removed and the Internet is available again, everything
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  resynchronizes and all of your data gets updated.
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  It's a really powerful feature because then you can have the
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  Peace of Mind of knowing that even if the Internet goes down,
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  your connection is still active. The other thing is, is even if
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  you lose electricity, the cloud link will automatically reboot
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  and start running automatically when electricity resumes.
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  So we've designed the cloud going to act as that like ultra
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  resilient buffer between on premises and the cloud.
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  I think this is going to serve end users and channel partners
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  in the countries of Africa really, really well as they
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  build out their infrastructure. Africa is seeing a massive surge
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  in urban megaprojects and energy infrastructure.
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  How do the vehicle intelligence and perimeter Intrusion demos
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  intersect 2026 specifically address the protection of high
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  end value? High value critical assets.
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  This is very much the home base of Genentech's expertise and
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  it's mostly down to the fact that we work with such a range
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  of manufacturers, like device manufacturers, whether that's
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  radar, laser, microwave, you know, a wide variety of
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  perimeter protection drones. These things allow, you know,
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  sort of large scale energy projects to have, I would say,
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  maximum freedom in design when they're putting together how
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  they're going to protect the perimeter of their estate,
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  whether it's one estate or many disparate, like sort of a hub
• 23:55
  and spoke design. So what we find is that, you
• 24:00
  know, OK, so it's important to have choice, right?
• 24:04
  You want to be able to choose all the different devices you
• 24:06
  want so you can design the system you want, but that
• 24:09
  increases complexity. So why Genentech is especially
• 24:13
  suited to these very complex large scale projects is that our
• 24:19
  platform really reduces that complexity so that you can take
• 24:22
  action in a meaningful way. Because when you get a perimeter
• 24:26
  issue, great, you have the best radar out there.
• 24:30
  You know somebody is coming up to the fence or they're trying
• 24:32
  to cut the fence, you know that. What do you do next?
• 24:37
  And what Genentech's security center software does is it
• 24:41
  creates the workflow immediately.
• 24:43
  It will ingest the data. It'll say, OK, first thing you
• 24:46
  need to do is A. Second thing is B automatically
• 24:50
  documented and it'll time it out so that when you resolve the
• 24:54
  situation, you can go back and look at how can we get better at
• 24:58
  resolving these situations in the future?
• 25:00
  Because you can do an after action review.
• 25:03
  Did we respond quickly enough to the perimeter intrusion that
• 25:07
  happened? Did we deploy the right
• 25:09
  resources? Did we document it?
• 25:11
  Did we send it to the local authorities?
• 25:13
  Did we have a case number? Because governance risk and
• 25:17
  compliance becomes really big in these types of businesses.
• 25:22
  So they want that auditable trail of action.
• 25:25
  And this is where it gets really interesting.
• 25:27
  Yes, anybody can buy radar, anybody can buy microwave laser,
• 25:32
  but it's all about the platform that you connected to.
• 25:36
  As African businesses digitized, the line between IT and physical
• 25:41
  security is blurring. What advice do you give to a CSO
• 25:46
  in Nairobi or Lagos who is struggling to unify these two
• 25:49
  traditionally siloed departments?
• 25:52
  I would tell the CISOS have patience and faith.
• 25:56
  You know, I, I think what we're seeing now is that physical
• 26:02
  security and IT professionals are finding a lot more common
• 26:06
  ground than they are grounds where they're not similar.
• 26:10
  And the number one thing is a typical human thing
• 26:14
  communication. You have to get them talking to
• 26:17
  one another and, and looking at, you know, what it is to deploy a
• 26:22
  system more and more. You know, IT is critical path to
• 26:27
  security deployments, but IT has to rely on physical security
• 26:31
  professionals around the things that they know best, which is
• 26:35
  really about how do you keep a facility safe?
• 26:38
  How do you understand the movement of people, assets,
• 26:42
  goods across a security design, right.
• 26:46
  This is the this is the expertise of physical security
• 26:49
  professionals. How do you angle a camera?
• 26:51
  Where do you put access control readers?
• 26:53
  Where do you put gates? Where do you put intercoms?
• 26:56
  But those physical security people need to understand that
• 27:00
  all of this is network technical, right?
• 27:02
  So how do you protect that data on the network?
• 27:05
  How do you archive it? How do you bring the cloud into
• 27:08
  play? How do you manage the vendor
• 27:10
  risk assessment? I mean, ACISO right now in
• 27:14
  Nairobi, Lagos chat, wherever they are, they need to be
• 27:18
  putting cybersecurity really high on their list for physical
• 27:22
  security projects. And they need to understand that
• 27:24
  that's not the traditional strength of physical security
• 27:27
  people. So the number one thing is
• 27:30
  realize the strengths, both teams and realize the benefit of
• 27:34
  having them work together hand in hand, because if they don't
• 27:37
  work together hand in hand, you open yourself up to risk.
• 27:41
  So we really need to be working together to to eliminate that
• 27:45
  risk in the system because it all comes down to really the,
• 27:49
  the cyber security of the physical security network within
• 27:53
  companies. So the.
• 27:55
  Last question is what future innovations are you most excited
• 27:59
  about that would define physical Security 2026?
• 28:04
  I am most excited about hybrid deployments.
• 28:08
  I think that's going to be the future of physical security
• 28:12
  which is deployments that leverage a lot of on premises
• 28:16
  data management at the client site along with the cloud.
• 28:21
  And I think what really gets me excited is what our cloud link
• 28:25
  product can do to really de risk the move to the cloud, the, you
• 28:31
  know, ability to leverage AI, the ability to use small
• 28:34
  language models on a device that run locally.
• 28:38
  This is where things get really, really interesting.
• 28:41
  We want people to not have to worry about the infrastructure
• 28:46
  of the technology. We want them to focus on, you
• 28:49
  know, really the number one thing.
• 28:51
  What outcomes do you want to achieve as a physical security
• 28:55
  professional? What what does your investment
• 28:58
  in Genentech? What do you want it to deliver?
• 29:00
  How do you know you're successful after you've invested
• 29:04
  this money? That should be the number one
• 29:07
  thing we talk about. We shouldn't be talking about
• 29:09
  cloud, AI, this, that, the next security, technical government
• 29:15
  we should be talking about. What do you want to achieve?
• 29:17
  Is it no safety for your workers at your oil and gas company?
• 29:21
  Is it, you know, more reliable transport of goods from your
• 29:25
  distribution center to your retail shops?
• 29:27
  Like you know, we there are outcomes that physical security
• 29:31
  people have to deal with and I think we get so caught up in all
• 29:36
  the gizmos that we forget to have that conversation first.
• 29:40
  So I think, you know, building tools like the Cloudlink are
• 29:44
  great, but I think over the coming years, what really
• 29:47
  excites me is the continued maturation of this industry such
• 29:52
  that we could be talking about real outcomes that security
• 29:55
  technology delivers. Thank you so much.
• 29:59
  Appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
• 30:07
  That brings us to the end of our conversation with Andrew Elvish,
• 30:10
  Vice President of Global Marketing and Genetech.
• 30:13
  As we've heard today, the future of physical security isn't just
• 30:16
  about more cameras, more data, or more automation.
• 30:19
  It's about using technology responsibly, unifying systems
• 30:23
  intelligently, and delivering real operational outcomes for
• 30:26
  organizations operating in an increasingly complex world.
• 30:29
  From Africa's leapfrogging approach to infrastructure to
• 30:32
  the growing convergence of IT and physical security, it's
• 30:35
  clear that maturity, trust and long term partnership now matter
• 30:38
  more than ever. A big thank you to Andrew and
• 30:40
  the genetic team for sharing their insights with us at
• 30:43
  Intersect 2026. For more interviews, deep dives
• 30:46
  and on the ground coverage of how technology is shaping
• 30:49
  business and society across Africa and beyond, stay tuned to
• 30:53
  Tech Friends Charts. I'm Tawida Ali, and thank you
• 30:55
  for watching. Special thanks to production
• 31:05
  team for making this show possible.
• 31:06
  The Tetris Podcast is produced by Tetris Media Studios with
• 31:10
  sound designed by Portable Voices and research support from
• 31:13
  Tixom, Canali, Alan Yongira, and the Directions Media Editorial
• 31:17
  team. Don't forget to subscribe, share
• 31:20
  and leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming
• 31:23
  platform. Until next time, keep
• 31:25
  innovating, stay informed, and stay ahead with the Tech Friends
• 31:29
  Podcast.