"Beep, beep"On the afternoon of the 10th, three days before the Lunar New Year holiday, at the S-1 security control center in Ingye-dong, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. A sharp siren from a beacon blared through the control room, which had seemed calm. A video from inside an unmanned store in Seoul's Gangseo District automatically popped up on the giant screen in front. When a man, apparently intoxicated, collapsed in a corner of the store and stopped moving, the AI detected it as an "remaining and collapse" anomaly and notified the controller. "Unmanned store in Gangseo District, dispatch field personnel immediately." It took only a few seconds for the controller to check the situation and order a dispatch. In this brief process, where AI detects and a person decides, S-1's 45 years of accumulated security operations experience was condensed.
Introducing the control center that day, Choi Jeong-ung, head of communications at S-1, said, "Before the unmanned control system first appeared in 1981, there was a time when we took night duty and stayed up with just a baseball bat," adding, "The current control center is a space where S-1's 45 years of experience and billions of data points are concentrated."
Currently, about 140 controllers work around the clock in three shifts at S-1's Suwon and Daegu control centers. The control signals received in a month amount to about 2.5 million. Of these, about 78% are automatically processed as the system determines on its own whether it is a real situation. Unlike the past, when people checked every signal one by one, AI now filters the first layer of risk signals and controllers focus on actual emergencies.
This control system was fully established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. S-1 introduced a "dual backup system" that integrated and duplicated the control centers in Suwon and Daegu, and the data accumulated in this process became the foundation of the current AI control system.
Seo Jeong-bae, head of product planning who led the technology demonstration, introduced the next-generation security solutions "SVMS (Smart Video Management System)" and "AI Agent." SVMS is designed to automatically detect abnormal situations using 17 types of intelligent algorithms, including intrusion, disturbance, and fire.
When Seo typed "show the camera at two-story height" into the chat window, the corresponding footage instantly appeared on the screen in a web browser without separate software installation. In response to the natural language command, "find the person wearing a black shirt and holding a phone," the AI quickly found the matching scenes in past recorded video. Seo said, "The AI Agent plays a role in assisting the judgment process of seasoned controllers," adding, "Natural language-based search can greatly reduce the time it takes to grasp the situation."
As unmanned stores spread, S-1's solutions are also expanding in the "unmanned economy" market. The unmanned-store solution "Ansim 24" links AI CCTV with the control center to broadcast remote warnings when it detects abnormal behavior. In the demonstration that day, when a disturbance inside an unmanned store was assumed, a voice from the control center was delivered on site saying, "The police have been notified. Leave immediately."
S-1's security technology is being used beyond the private sector into defense. It has already introduced a scientific guard system to the GOP border fence project, and going forward it is pursuing expansion to the so-called "physical AI" stage through a "VLA (Vision-Language-Action)" model that supports not only situational awareness but also the response process. Seo said, "We are currently at the stage of advancing a collaborative structure in which AI assists judgment and controllers make the final decision."
Kim Jeong-il, head of the situation team at the S-1 Suwon Security Control Center, explained the control method while showing the bodycam footage of dispatched personnel from the situation room. Kim said, "In responding to ATM malfunctions or nighttime dispatches, the safety of field personnel is most important," adding, "The control center checks not only the situation response but also the status of the dispatched personnel." Kim added, "Ensuring that dispatched personnel return safely is also the role of control."