We visited one of Hikvision’s Insight Roadshows in October; as featured in the November 2025 edition of Professional Security Magazine, to hear about the company’s promotion of ISO 42001, the international standard for artificial intelligence (AI) management systems.
The roadshows have for some years been one of the ways Hikvision reaches its installers, to let them know about latest products and likely developments, and a chance for installers to ask questions (which they’re not shy about doing). A year ago as we featured, the company showed its LED screens, a sign of how the firm is diversifying beyond video surveillance. This year the stand-out product was Guanlan (Chinese for wave) AI. At the roadshows you can talk to Hikvision distributors – when we were at the one at Manchester United FC’s Old Trafford stadium, they were (in alphabetical order) DVS, Dynamic CCTV, and Fortus. Also there was the information security awareness consultancy Advent IM’s CEO Mike Gillespie. We spoke to him and Hikvision UK commercial director Gary Harmer, about 42001. Gary’s pictured left, Mike right.
‘AI here to stay’
Their conversation about it had begun at The Security Event at the NEC in April. Gary recalled: “I did my own research on it and agreed with Mike’s view that it will very quickly become the de facto standard that’s required, like 9001.” To leave Gary for a moment, ISO 9001 is the international quality management standard, that installers will be familiar with, from seeking accreditation from the National Security Inspectorate (NSI), or SSAIB. To return to Gary, he added ISO 27001, the standard for information security management. “Because AI is here, and here to stay, and it’s shaping our lives every day, there will have to be governance around how it’s used.” Gary used one of three words as Mike later used, that are set out in 42001; the standard is about the ethical use of AI. Gary asked Hikvision HQ in Hangzhou, China about 42001 and they already had gained certification, for their own operations. That’s because ISO is a global corporate standard which focuses on HQ processes and protocols in development and management – it’s not a function of local sales and marketing subsidiaries.
Customers
Gary said: “I believe we are the first manufacturer to take 42001 messaging out to our customer base and enable them to understand a bit more about it, because it will have fairly significant impact on them.” In particular, Gary suggested that larger system installers who are deploying Hikvision video surveillance and related products (such as access control, intercoms and public address speakers), whether in public spaces, corporates or local government, they will almost certainly be using some form of AI. “We wanted to tell them there’s an international standard about it.”
Workshops
Gary went on: “We trained our own people, we invited Mike into the operation and Mike very kindly did a whole day workshop with the Hikvision sales team, to tell them what it’s all about, because we can’t go out and evangelise to our customers to get up to speed, if we don’t know about it ourselves.” As an aside, it’s worth bearing in mind what a statement by the company that is, given that it offers literally thousands of products – which implies making some choices about what to concentrate on. Next came two workshops, one for the north in Manchester and the other at the company’s UK base at Stockley Park in west London, ‘for some of our larger installers to go through the same seminar.” Last month a further seminar ran in Dublin.
Governance
Mike Gillespie joined us, having spoken to one of the roadshow visitors to his stand. Mike said: “If the technology gets ahead of governance, that’s when we get into trouble. Regulators get involved, we get a bad press …. not because of bad technology, but bad governance. It’s important that such a major player has seen the importance of taking it [AI governance] seriously and putting time and effort internally into it. There’s a lot of organisations that talk about AI and not talk about responsible AI.”
‘9001 for AI’
Responsible is another word that crops up in 42001. We asked Mike why 42001 matters, now. He replied: “There’s been standards produced, but very technical, and 42001 for me is a game-changer because it’s the first AI standard that properly talks about how to do AI right. How to do AI in a way that is both lawful and ethical and responsible” – there are the three terms from 42001 – “and it’s the first standard against which organisations can gain a formal certification to prove that they do AI right. 42001 will become as important to organisations as 9001 and 27001 have become. This will be 9001 for AI, that is how important it will be; and organisations either get on the front foot and start understanding and adopting the standard’s requirements, or they are going to be left behind.”
Risk management
Mike added that 42001 works well with some other standards – he singled out ISO 23894, the standard for AI risk management, and a core component of 42001. Mike made the point that as a management standard, 42001 and the understanding of AI ‘is a leadership problem, not a technical problem, and if you are going to adopt, use, deploy AI, you have a responsibility as senior leaders to understand why you are using it, what you are doing with it, how it is going to be used; and as leaders what you are doing is lawful, and ethical’. Mike had more to say about risk (which includes societal risk). “It isn’t about getting rid of risk, it’s about risk management, not risk avoidance, but doing risk management in a controlled way, so that whatever we do with AI is lawful, ethical and responsible.” Those three words again. Mike added two more: transparency and explainability, ‘and we have to achieve both of these if the public is going to trust what we do with AI, particularly in security’. And when (note Mike said when, not if) something isn’t right, someone – in leadership – needs to be accountable for putting it right.
Thought leadership
AI has the potential to be game-changing in so many ways, as Mike said: “If we are going to bring the public along on this journey we are going to need their trust.” And as Gary had told us, this is one of the ways he as commercial director wants Hikvision to be seen as a thought leader.
Photo by Mark Rowe.
