2026 Physical Security Trends Report

Enterprise physical security has progressed beyond chaos, but is hovering short of scale-ready governance.

Compliance urgency is rising. Device fleets are expanding. However, visibility, automation, and cross-team integration aren’t keeping pace.

See how 300 enterprise security leaders are managing physical security infrastructure, and where most organizations are falling short.

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Why get the report?

Understand where your physical security program really stands See how your visibility, automation, and governance maturity compare to peers across industries.
Identify the hidden gaps behind "good enough" Uncover where partial automation and hybrid ownership models are creating risk and operational drag.
Bridge the disconnect between urgency and capability Learn why compliance is a top priority, yet few teams feel fully equipped to manage it at scale.

Only 3% are fully confident in their ability to address compliance issues (firmware updates, password rotations, EOL/EOS planning)
Only 2.3% are fully confident their current tools are sufficient to manage and maintain device health and compliance at scale.

Governance pressure is real and rising across Director, Head of (Department/Function), VP, and C-level (Chief Officer) roles.

A Major Pattern Revealed in our Research

Few organizations have achieved true, centralized, automated governance at scale or are confident their current tools are helpful.

A little over half our respondents described their approach to managing physical security devices as “mostly automated with some manual processes.”

And yet, 76% said their current tools fall short when it comes to automating routine compliance tasks.

Only 3% are fully confident their tools can effectively address noncompliance.

Understand where your physical security program really stands See how your visibility, automation, and governance maturity compare to peers across industries.
Identify the hidden gaps behind "good enough" Uncover where partial automation and hybrid ownership models are creating risk and operational drag.
Bridge the disconnect between urgency and capability Learn why compliance is a top priority, yet few teams feel fully equipped to manage it at scale.

C-suite leaders are significantly more confident in their compliance tools than the Directors managing them day-to-day.

Only 52% of C-level respondents prefer in-house control of their physical security infrastructure, compared to 78% of Directors who want it.

77% of directors say manual device management impedes strategic risk work. At the C-level, that number drops to 54%.