Editor’s note: FM Perspectives are industry op-eds. The views expressed are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of Facilities Management Advisor.
Economic conditions don’t just change balance sheets—they change behaviors, operating rhythms, and the amount of “slack” organizations have to absorb disruption. That’s why I believe 2026 will be a year when facility security becomes more tightly linked to resilience and performance and not simply loss prevention. When materials, equipment, and inventory carry heavier financial weight, the impact of a single theft or act of vandalism can cause delays, unexpected expenses, and diverted leadership attention.
As we enter the new year, facilities leaders should be thinking along the lines of: how do we control costs and avoid incidents that create even bigger costs? With that context in mind, here are three predictions I believe will shape physical security for facilities in 2026.
1. Balancing economic pressures with sound security becomes a leadership priority.
In today’s air of uncertainty, true resilience begins long before disruption strikes. As businesses grapple with shifting economic conditions, physical security can no longer be an afterthought. I expect security to keep evolving into a strategic investment, especially in asset-intensive industries where inventory and materials carry major financial weight and sit in exposed environments.
One reason I’m confident this shift will accelerate in 2026 is that organizations aren’t starting from a “quiet” baseline. In Pro-Vigil’s newly released State of Physical Security Entering 2026 survey, 88% of respondents reported physical security incidents increased or stayed the same in 2025. That’s a strong indicator that the risk environment is persistent, even before we consider the ongoing air of economic uncertainty. And when incidents do occur, leaders across industries describe tangible operational fallout, citing damage to assets, impact to inventory, and project delays as top impacts.
In 2026, more executives will connect those impacts directly to business continuity as delays alter schedules, missing equipment strains crews, and inventory losses create roadblocks for customer and end-user commitments. Under economic pressure, organizations typically have less cushion to absorb any of that. This changes the security conversation from “What can we cut?” to “What disruptions can we not afford?” and the best answers will be practical, risk-based, and site-specific.
That doesn’t mean every facility needs the same approach. I expect the strongest programs to focus on aligning protection with asset exposure: where high-value inventory sits, where access is easiest, where dwell time is longest, and where response is slowest. In a tight economy, leaders will demand that security spend correlates clearly to risk and prevents real operational pain, not just theoretical loss.
2. Security looks to the future: Predictive threat analysis moves from concept to competitive advantage.
Predictive threat analysis represents an emerging frontier for artificial intelligence (AI) in physical security, one that is still under development but holds real transformative potential. This technology aims to harness data to identify and anticipate potential risks, such as forecasting the likelihood of theft or intrusion at specific times.
To be clear, I don’t believe 2026 is the year predictive threat analysis becomes widespread overnight. What I do believe is that the market will increasingly reward organizations that think proactively rather than reactively. The old model (i.e., responding after something happens) doesn’t align well with today’s operational realities. When facilities are running lean, when projects are stretched, and when replacement cycles are slow, a reactive posture creates more downtime than many businesses can tolerate.
My prediction is that more security leaders will start building the foundation for prevention. This starts by capturing cleaner data, standardizing incident reporting, and integrating signals from multiple sources so they can move from “What happened?” to “What’s likely to happen next and where?” The organizations that do this early will be able to allocate resources more intelligently, tighten procedures where risk is trending upward, and reduce the probability of incidents rather than just documenting them.
Over time, once these capabilities mature, the promise is significant: shifting from reacting to incidents to preventing them entirely. Eventually, this allows facilities leaders to protect assets and people before threats materialize. In a world where every disruption has a higher price tag, that’s not futuristic thinking, it’s the next logical step.
3. AI adoption accelerates, driven by confidence and guided by practicality.
My third prediction is simpler: AI adoption for facility physical security will rise meaningfully in 2026, not because it’s trendy, but because leaders need scalable ways to improve attention, speed, and consistency.
Pro-Vigil’s survey shows that AI is still early in real-world use, but momentum is building. In 2025, 15% of respondents said their physical security strategy utilizes AI, up from 6% in 2023 and 7% in 2024. At the same time, sentiment has shifted sharply. Sixty-one percent of respondents believe AI can help stop physical security incidents. That gap may signal what comes next: more testing, more targeted deployments, and more learning-by-doing.
I don’t expect 2026 to be about “AI everywhere.” I expect it to be about AI in the places where it reduces friction such as triaging events, so teams aren’t overwhelmed, cutting down false alarms, spotting anomalies faster, and helping organizations maintain consistent oversight across many sites. Economic pressure will intensify that demand, because labor is expensive and attention is limited. In that environment, tools that help teams focus on what matters most will be prioritized.
Importantly, I also predict buyers will be more discerning. They’ll ask hard questions about outcomes. Does it reduce incidents? Does it shorten response time? Does it cut noise? Does it integrate cleanly into operations? The organizations that adopt AI thoughtfully, pairing it with clear processes, accountability, and human decision-making, will see the most benefit.
If there’s a throughline across all three predictions, it’s that in 2026, facility security becomes less about checking a box and more about protecting operational momentum. The question isn’t whether risk exists. It’s whether organizations prepare early enough to keep it from disrupting operations.
Jeremy White is the founder and CEO of Pro-Vigil, a provider of AI-enabled remote video monitoring solutions.