A documented comparison for retail teams that bought gesture detection for shrink and now need the rest of the store covered. Veesion runs on cameras you already have with no extra hardware. The question is what else those cameras should be answering.
Veesion analyzes the cameras a store already has to detect high-risk gestures that commonly precede theft, and sends a short mobile video alert when it finds one. Teams shop for an alternative when they need receipts tied to video, coverage beyond the sales floor, or something that acts rather than notifies. Read the ranking with that in mind, because none of these is a cheaper Veesion.
Both platforms read the cameras already in the store. The difference is how many questions those cameras are allowed to answer once the feed arrives.
Every cell is something the vendor publishes, or an explicit not publicly specified.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Veesion's row was read off Veesion's own site on August 12, 2026 and re-checked on August 21, 2026, when the RTSP compatibility statement was added. Lumana's row was rewritten on August 21, 2026 from lumana.ai and lumana.ai/pricing, after its published detection catalog and response layer were confirmed. Solink's row comes from the Solink comparison built on August 7, 2026, and the other rows from each vendor's public documentation reviewed in July and August 2026. Gaps are marked as not publicly specified rather than guessed.
Start by discarding the wrong reason, and give Veesion its due first. It runs on the cameras a store already has, states nothing to replace and no downtime, requires no extra hardware and says it goes live in days. For a single problem on a single sales floor, that is a genuinely low-friction answer and the alternatives here are heavier.
The first real reason is that theft gestures are one signal among several. Veesion publishes no point of sale integration, so a concealment alert never meets the receipt that would have proved a sweethearting case. Solink names Toast, Square and NCR for exactly that reason. If your shrink program needs transaction context, that is a functional gap rather than a preference.
The second is everything else the same cameras could answer. Veesion claims no safety, operations or perimeter capability, which is honest positioning rather than a shortfall. But a chain running Veesion for the sales floor still needs something for the loading dock, the back room, the parking lot and the safety audit, and every one of those is a second contract on cameras that are already paid for.
If concealment on the sales floor is the whole problem, Veesion is aimed straight at it. If the same cameras have four other jobs, the count of contracts is the real cost.
What each one is, where it is strong, and what to check before you commit.
Spot AI is a software-led video AI platform that turns the IP cameras a business already owns into AI coworkers. An on-site Intelligent Video Recorder keeps full-resolution video in the building and sends only event metadata to the cloud, so search and multi-site management stay cloud-based while footage does not leave the store.
Solink is a cloud video platform for retail and restaurant operators that pairs a site's existing cameras with point-of-sale data, so register exceptions surface as video clips. It ships three named agents, Overnight Guard, Loss Prevention and Store Readiness, alongside a customer-facing builder, and names 48 camera manufacturers publicly.
Verkada is a cloud-managed platform that sells its own cameras, access control, sensors, alarms and intercoms under one console, and publishes per-device MSRPs. Third-party cameras come in through Command Connector, which Verkada states is an ONVIF Profile S conformant client and can also ingest RTSP feeds.
Coram AI is a camera-agnostic platform built around AI search and investigation across cameras a business already owns, with named detections for firearms, falls and PPE violations, and alerts that can be built in plain English. An on-site appliance called Coram Point is purchased upfront.
Lumana is a video AI platform with documented point-of-sale integration, and it publishes its catalog rather than describing it: roughly thirty named event types under four AI agents called Insight, Monitor, Investigate and Respond, plus a response layer named action by action. Lumana Core stores and processes video on site and, in its pricing FAQ, replaces your DVR or NVR.
Six questions that separate these platforms faster than any feature list.
Concealment detection tells you someone hid something. A point of sale exception tells you what was rung up and by whom. Solink names Toast, Square and NCR, Lumana documents point of sale integration, and Veesion names none. If your shrink program is building cases rather than counting incidents, that connection is the requirement.
Count them: sales floor shrink, back room, loading dock, parking lot, slip and fall, queue length, opening checks. Veesion claims one. Ask every other vendor which of your list ships pre-trained, then compare the number of contracts each answer implies across the estate.
Veesion's documented output is a short mobile video alert to your team. Verkada documents AI-Powered Deterrence with its BZ11 horn speaker or Intercom models. Spot AI runs talk down, strobes and horns through standard speakers. Ask what happens after hours when nobody picks up the phone.
Veesion publishes no accuracy figure, no integration list and no certifications. Lumana sits at the other end of this page: SOC 2 Type I and Type II, a named detection catalog and a stated reduction of up to 90% in false alerts. Veesion's silence is not proof of a weak product, but it does mean the evaluation moves entirely into the pilot. Insist on a pilot in your own stores with a written definition of what a successful week looks like.
Veesion states nothing to replace and no extra hardware, and compatibility with any video system that supports RTSP, which it says covers all recent installations. Solink names 48 camera manufacturers. Spot AI takes any ONVIF or RTSP camera plus legacy analog through the Intelligent Video Recorder. Run the requirement against your oldest store, not your flagship.
Veesion publishes more than 10 gestures in three groups: concealment in clothing, concealment in bags including backpacks and a shopper's own bags, and other cases such as items hidden in strollers or consumed in the store. Each gesture can be turned on or off per shop and per camera, so a store whose customers bring their own bags can drop that one. Check your top five loss scenarios against that list, because a closed gesture set is a design choice rather than an oversight.
Spot AI fits when the cameras are already in the stores and the estate needs shrink, safety and operations answered from the same feeds, with something happening after the alert. It runs on any ONVIF or RTSP camera plus legacy analog through the Intelligent Video Recorder, and ships 15+ pre-trained agents with Iris for custom detections.
Veesion stays the right call for a retailer whose single, urgent problem is concealment on the sales floor, who wants it live in days on existing cameras, and who is content for the output to be a video clip on a phone. None of the alternatives here is cheaper or faster at that one job.
The cameras are already paid for. The real question is how many separate contracts you are willing to run on top of them.
Watch the AI coworkers work on your live feeds, not a demo reel.
Customer-reported outcomes from named Spot AI customers.
All Star Elite brought cash shrink down from about 6% to 1% across its store estate, and cut investigation time by more than half.
All Star Elite also lifted sales 5 to 15% by using the same footage to optimize where best-selling stock was placed.
Bridge33 Capital standardized video across 25 plus commercial properties on whatever cameras each acquisition already had, and cut footage search from hours to minutes.
"The ability to formalize our incident reporting with Spot AI, keep every case in one database, and attach video directly to those cases has been a game changer."
The five covered here are Spot AI, Solink, Verkada, Coram AI and Lumana. Spot AI fits chains needing shrink, safety and operations from the same cameras. Solink fits register-anchored loss with point of sale exceptions. Verkada fits a chain specifying hardware from scratch. Coram AI fits investigation-first teams. Lumana fits retailers wanting a newer transaction-anchored platform.
Yes. Veesion states it analyzes the cameras you already have, with nothing to replace, no downtime and no extra hardware, and that a store can be live in days. It names RTSP as the requirement and says all recent installations meet it, without publishing a conformance profile or a camera compatibility list, so check the stream requirements against your oldest stores rather than your newest.
High-risk gestures that commonly precede theft, read from body movements and concealment behaviors, delivered as a short mobile video alert. Veesion claims no safety, operations or perimeter detections, and names no point of sale integration, so transaction context and the rest of the estate sit outside what it advertises.
No. No accuracy or false-alert figure appears on its site, which makes a pilot in your own stores the only real evaluation. Agree in advance what a successful week looks like and how it will be measured.
Solink adds register exceptions and its Store Readiness agent, and Verkada adds access control and sensors on the same console. Lumana publishes a catalog of roughly thirty event types. Spot AI spans security, safety and operations with 15+ pre-trained agents plus Iris for custom detections, which is why it leads the list for estates where the cameras have more than one job.