Unified cloud and physical security company Acre Security today announced it has opened a research preview of Acre Via, an artificial intelligence agent embedded into its cloud-native access control platform that allows operators to query their security systems, investigate events and manage cardholders using natural language.

Via is being pitched as being among the first AI assistants in the physical access control market to both surface intelligence and take action within a live system. Operators can ask the agent to create a cardholder or modify an access level, then the agent completes the task and requires explicit human confirmation before any change goes live.

According to Acre, the approach positions AI to work inside critical security infrastructure under controlled parameters and provide full transparency to human operators.

Via operates within Acre Access Control and allows operators to investigate events through conversation. An operator can ask how “door-forced-open” events have been trending, see a visualization, then drill into specific hardware and events and export the results, so that each question builds on the last, like an investigation. Operators can also ask Via to create new cardholders with specific access levels, and the agent asks for confirmation before executing.

“What Via can become and what very few companies in this space are set up to do credibly, is turn a fragmented physical security stack into a single operating layer where an operator can ask, understand, decide and act across systems in one place,” said Jeff Groom, director of AI engineering at Acre Security. “That’s where this is going. But the interface has to earn that trust first.”

The research preview is scoped to Acre Access Control. The company’s roadmap positions the agent as an intelligence layer across its full unified platform, including intrusion detection, visitor management and video. A research preview is being used, since Acre believes that AI products in critical infrastructure should be shaped by the people who operate them daily.

Acre Via is available in an initial preview to organizations with an Acre Access Control license, with the company planning on general availability later this year based on operator feedback and usage data.

Acre Security, formally Access Control Related Enterprises LLC, has been owned since 2021 by Triton Investments Advisors LLP. The company’s services are used by Google LLC, Amazon Web Services Inc., The Coca-Cola Co., Mastercard Inc., Procter & Gamble Co. and the U.K.’s House of Lords to secure their physical environments.

Image: Acre Security