Veesion is a theft-detection layer running on the cameras a store already owns, so this is less a rip-out than a question of scope: whether shrink stays its own vendor or becomes one agent among safety, operations and the perimeter on the same feeds. The trigger moments, what changes on day one and a four-phase plan that keeps every store covered throughout.
Both platforms read the cameras a store already owns, so the switch changes what sits behind them and what happens once something is spotted. Both rows describe what each vendor publishes.
Four moments when retail teams running a theft-detection layer start this conversation. If none of them are true, staying put is a reasonable answer.
Veesion detects eleven gesture types in three categories, all of them theft-related, and it says so plainly. That is one job done narrowly on purpose. The moment safety wants slip and fall, operations wants queue and dwell or the district manager wants to know why one store's close takes 40 minutes longer, none of it is in scope and the answer is a second vendor on the same cameras.
The documented output is a short video clip pushed to the app. That works when someone is on the floor with a phone in their hand. It does the least at 02:00, on a Sunday or in a store that is short-staffed on the exact shift that shrink concentrates in. If your worst incidents happen when the app is not being watched, the gap is in what happens next, not in what was detected.
Veesion states that history is kept for 30 days and that videos are permanently deleted after that period. If your organized retail crime cases, insurance claims or civil recovery run longer than a month, that window is a constraint on the program rather than a detail. Check it against how long your own cases actually stay open before you renew.
Detection quality is worth testing on your own floor rather than arguing about. Run both on one store for a fortnight and count what each one catches, what each one missed and how many alerts a person had to open to find the real ones. That comparison is cheap, and it is the only one that answers the question for your format.
The structural differences that decide whether a switch is worth starting.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Veesion data comes from Veesion's own public site and installation FAQ, read August 2026. Where Veesion publishes nothing, this table says so rather than guessing.
A rollout that keeps coverage live throughout. Most sites go live inside six weeks.
Inventory what Veesion is actually watching: which cameras are enabled per store, which of the eleven gesture types are switched on for each of them and which recorder the Veesion Server is reading from. The 30-day history puts a clock on this phase. Anything an open case needs that is older than that window has already gone, and anything the next month produces has to be exported deliberately rather than assumed.
Run one store on both at once for a fortnight. Veesion keeps pushing its notifications while Spot AI reads the same feeds, and that overlap is the point: it is the only honest way to compare what each one catches on your own floor rather than on a demo reel. Pick the store with the worst shrink number rather than the easiest one, and include the back of house and the loading door so the pilot covers ground the gesture model was never pointed at.
Move store by store rather than chain-wide, keeping Veesion live at each store until its replacement has run a full week. Both platforms read the cameras already installed, so a cutover is a configuration change plus an IVR, not a re-survey. Decommission the Veesion Server at a store only once that store has passed its sign-off, and keep the notice period in view: the day the contract lapses is the day the history stops existing.
Once shrink coverage is stable, the work moves from parity to the questions the old tool was never asked. Turn on the safety and operations agents already running on the same feeds, build an Iris detection for something specific to your format and decide what should fire at 03:00 when nobody is in the store to read a notification. This is the phase where the switch stops being a like-for-like swap.
The six that come up in every one of these conversations.
Most switches start before the contract ends, because assess and pilot cost little and the comparison is more honest with both systems live. Run the pilot on one store during the overlap and time the chain-wide cutover to the renewal date rather than paying twice across every location.
No, and the plan makes that structural rather than a promise. Veesion keeps pushing notifications at each store until its replacement has run a full week, the cameras never move and stores cut over one at a time. If a store fails its sign-off test, that store stays where it is while the others proceed.
Veesion states history is kept for 30 days and that videos are permanently deleted after that period, so there is no archive to migrate and no long tail to negotiate over. Export the clips attached to open cases during the assess phase. Treat that export list as a deliverable with a date on it, not an afterthought.
Camera reuse is common ground, so it is not the reason to move. What changes is scope, response and where the video sits: theft gestures become one agent among safety, operations and perimeter ones, something can happen at the moment of a detection without a person opening an app and full-resolution video stays in the store on the Intelligent Video Recorder.
That familiarity is real and worth naming. The offset is that the day-to-day job changes shape: search in plain English replaces scrolling a feed of clips, and the agents that matter after hours act without anyone opening anything. Budget the full fortnight of pilot overlap so the team compares both on their own store rather than in a demo.
Anyone answering that without two quotes is guessing. The structural difference is what the money buys: one function against a platform that also covers safety, operations and the perimeter on the same feeds. Quote both against the identical store list, and count the vendors you would still need afterwards on each side.
Bring a camera list and we will tell you what works as it is.
Customer-reported outcomes from named Spot AI customers.
Staccato went from first conversation to full deployment across an 800-acre campus in seven weeks, on the camera infrastructure it already had.
Bridge33 Capital standardized video across 25 plus properties, each acquisition arriving with a different camera system, and cut footage search from hours to minutes.
The YMCA of Greater Richmond deployed 17 locations in two weeks and standardized retention across the estate.
"Within four minutes of the alarm going off, Spot AI gave us video footage of the incident on the responding officers' phones. We had five recoveries within the hour."
No. Veesion analyzes the cameras a store already has, and Spot AI is camera agnostic in the same way: any IP camera speaking ONVIF or RTSP works as it is, and legacy analog comes in through the Intelligent Video Recorder. Nothing on the wall moves and no coax is pulled.
Most estates are live inside six weeks: a week to assess, a fortnight of pilot on one store, then store-by-store cutover. Stores go live individually rather than in a single chain-wide switch, so the timeline scales with how many stores you have rather than how many cameras sit in each.
Veesion states its history is kept for 30 days and that videos are permanently deleted after that. Export anything attached to an open case, an insurance claim or a civil recovery before the subscription lapses. That export list belongs in the assess phase, because the window is short and it closes with the contract.
Yes, and the plan depends on it. The pilot phase runs one store on both at once so detection quality and the response after a detection can be compared on identical footage. Veesion keeps running at every store until that store's replacement has passed a full week of sign-off.
Scope and what happens next. Veesion detects eleven theft-related gesture types and pushes a short video clip to the app. Spot AI runs 15+ pre-trained agents across security, safety and operations on the same feeds, with AI Talk Down, strobes and horns through standard speakers already on site and full-resolution video staying on the Intelligent Video Recorder.