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AI Loss Prevention: How Existing CCTV Becomes Your Smartest Shrink Defense

AI Loss Prevention: How Existing CCTV Becomes Your Smartest Shrink Defense

The shrink problem isn't going away

The National Retail Federation pegs global retail shrink at over $112B annually. Internal theft accounts for roughly a third, external theft another half, and the remainder is process loss and vendor fraud. Traditional loss prevention — guards, mirrors, and post-event footage review — catches a small slice of what's actually happening.

What AI vision changes

Modern computer vision identifies the patterns that precede a theft: concealment behavior, tag removal motions, repeated returns to high-value displays, coordinated group movements. Xorth detects these in real time and alerts loss prevention while the suspect is still in store — when intervention is still possible and merchandise is still recoverable.

Internal theft is harder to spot than external

Cashier-led fraud (void scams, unauthorized discounts, sweethearting) accounts for billions in annual loss. It's invisible to standard cameras. Xorth correlates transaction events with video at the register, flagging anomalous void rates or specific behaviors. The result is documentation strong enough to support termination and, where appropriate, prosecution.

Beyond theft: customer safety and intelligence

The same cameras identify slip-and-fall incidents, medical emergencies, and crowd density problems — automating response and limiting liability. They also reveal customer flow patterns: which aisles are dead zones, which displays drive dwell time, which checkout lanes back up during peak hours.

No new hardware

The biggest barrier to deploying smarter loss prevention has historically been cost. Xorth runs on existing CCTV in most stores. Your IP cameras stream to our platform, AI models do the analysis, and your LP team gets actionable alerts on their phones.

Curious what AI vision could catch in your stores? We typically run a two-week pilot in a single location before scaling. Reach out to start.

Product, safety and AI research notes from the team building Xorth.

Xorth connects to the cameras you already own. See real-time detection running on your own feeds.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How Xorth connects, what it detects, and where your video is processed.
General
How does Xorth work with our existing cameras?
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Xorth connects to your existing IP CCTV over RTSP through your NVR or VMS, and to any ONVIF-conformant camera; analogue estates connect through an encoder. There is no camera replacement and no new cabling. In practice this covers all major camera brands — Hikvision, Dahua, CP Plus, Hanwha, Axis and Bosch among them. As a rule of thumb a model needs a 2 MP or better stream, enough light for the zone, and a view in which the subject fills enough of the frame to be resolved — but we confirm that per camera position during the survey rather than promising it in general. Angle, distance and lighting decide which models a position can support, and we tell you which ones it cannot.
How long does deployment take?
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First cameras are typically live within about a week of network access. A fully tuned site — zones drawn, detection thresholds set, false positives reviewed with your safety team — usually takes two to four weeks depending on camera count. Tuning is not optional: an alert stream nobody trusts gets ignored, and an ignored alert stream is worse than no system at all.
Where is our video processed and stored?
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Wherever your policy requires. Inference can run on a GPU server inside your own network, in a private cloud tenancy you control, or on Xorth-hosted infrastructure — the mode is fixed in your order form, not changed later. In on-premise and private-cloud deployments the video stays inside your environment and only events, metadata and short evidence clips reach the dashboard. Where you choose Xorth-hosted, that infrastructure runs in Mumbai, India, with the region confirmed in your order form. A full audit trail is maintained in every mode. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you remain the Data Fiduciary; Xorth acts as a Data Processor on your documented instructions.
What can Xorth actually detect?
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Twenty-four detection models across three domains. Safety covers PPE, work at height and fall arrest, falls and prolonged immobility, crane and lifting proximity, exclusion-zone breach, hot work, fire and smoke, and material stacking. Security covers perimeter and after-hours intrusion, restricted-area access, loitering, ANPR, enrolled-person recognition and material and plant protection. Operations covers zone activity, headcount and entity count, covered-load verification, waste handling, crowding and visitor logging. Ask us for the full model list — which of them a site runs is a configuration decision, not a licensing one.
Can Xorth integrate with our existing security and EHS systems?
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Yes. Xorth is an additional layer over your existing operation, not a replacement for it. Events are delivered by email, SMS, in-app, open REST API and signed webhooks, so they can be pushed into your incident register, EHS management system, access-control platform or ticketing tool. Deeper connectors are scoped with your systems integrator.
What happens when something is detected?
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The assigned responder receives an alert carrying the camera, the zone, a timestamped evidence clip and the model's confidence score. Every alert is retained with its review state, so you can show who saw it, when, and what corrective action was raised. Detection is probabilistic and always requires human judgement — Xorth surfaces the event and holds the record; your team decides what it means.