ISC West 2026 was our busiest show yet. The conversations at the booth were longer and more technically specific than in previous years. Security directors, integrators, and operations leaders were stopping by because they had already done their research and wanted to pressure-test what they thought they knew.
That shift in the quality of conversation was the most significant thing we took away from Las Vegas this year.
Here are the three things we learned at ISC West 2026:
- The Security Market Has Moved From Exploring to Evaluating
“The conversations have shifted,” said Peter Evans, CEO of Xtract One. “People are no longer coming to the show to understand what AI-powered weapons detection is. They are coming to understand which solution is actually going to work in their environment.”
A few years ago, the primary work we did at ISC West was education… explaining what the technology does, how it differs from conventional metal detection, and why alert rates in device-heavy environments make traditional screening unsustainable. Those conversations still happen, but they are no longer the dominant ones.
The prospects stopping by the Xtract One booth in 2026 arrived with specific questions. They wanted to know what alert rates look like at a school with a one-to-one Chromebook program versus a stadium with a clear bag policy. They wanted to understand the difference between Xtract One Gateway and SmartGateway and which product belongs at which entry point. They wanted to talk about egress — protecting assets on the way out, including high-value items like precious metals and electronics. That last conversation came up more consistently than we have seen at any previous show, reflecting a growing recognition that the perimeter works in both directions.
The sophistication of the questions being asked tells you something important about where the market is. Buyers are not in the awareness phase anymore. They are in the evaluation phase, and they are taking that evaluation seriously.
- Experience Has Made Buyers More Careful
“There have been many successes across the industry, but also real failures and real disappointments,” Evans said. “Early adopters of AI-powered detection took a risk on new technology, and some of them did not get what they were promised. That experience is making the whole buying market more careful and more thorough in how they analyze solutions before committing.”
That caution is healthy, and it is something we welcome. The organizations that were burned by first-generation deployments (systems that underperformed in operational conditions, generated alert volumes that were unmanageable, or required secondary infrastructure that was never part of the original proposal) are now asking exactly the right questions. What do your customers actually see in operation? What are the alert rates in environments similar to mine?
These are questions that reward vendors who have built their customer base on operational performance rather than demonstration performance. The reference conversations we had at ISC West this year were not abstract. Prospects wanted to talk to specific customers in specific verticals, and we are now able to facilitate those conversations because the operational track record is there.
The dissatisfaction that exists in parts of the market with early-stage deployments has also raised the stakes around independent validation. The question of who has tested a system, under what conditions, and with what results came up consistently across booth conversations. For SmartGateway specifically, the validation record (TSA, FAA, DOJ, US Federal Marshals, NPSA, NCS4) carried real weight in those discussions in a way that would not have been as pronounced two or three years ago.
- Refinement, Not Revolution
One observation stood out as particularly relevant for anyone trying to make sense of the broader vendor landscape coming out of ISC West.
“There was no true new innovation on the show floor this year. What you saw from the broad vendor community was refinement of existing technology being iterated on to deliver on promises that were made earlier and have not fully been kept yet,” said Peter.
The noise around AI in physical security has been significant, and ISC West has historically been a place where that noise amplifies. This year felt different. The vendors making the most credible impression were the ones demonstrating that their existing systems work, not the ones announcing the next generation of something that does not have an operational track record yet.
For buyers, the question to bring to any vendor conversation is not what the technology will eventually do. It is what it is doing right now, in environments like yours, for customers who have been running it for more than six months.
What We Took Away from ISC West 2026
ISC West 2026 confirmed something we have believed for a while: that the physical security market is maturing, and that maturation is good for organizations that take security seriously. Buyers who do their homework and hold vendors accountable to operational performance rather than demonstration conditions will end up with programs that actually work.
The interest we saw across both SmartGateway and Xtract One Gateway from venues,healthcare organizations, school districts, manufacturing facilities and cultural institutions reflects a broad recognition that the category has moved past the early adopter phase. The organizations evaluating AI-powered detection today are not taking a chance on something unproven. They are choosing between established solutions with real reference bases and real operational data.
That is a different market than the one we were selling into three years ago, and it is a better one.If you stopped by the booth at ISC West and want to continue the conversation, reach out at sales@xtractone.com.