Iveda Launches Real-Time Zero-Shot AI Detection, Enabling Users to Instantly Build Custom AI Models With a Single Prompt

Iveda® a global leader in AI-driven video analytics and smart city technologies, announced a major advancement within its IvedaAI platform: real-time zero-shot AI detection powered by natural language prompts. For the first time, retailers and security operators can type a single word or phrase — “shoplifting,” “suspicious behavior,” or “graffiti” — and instantly activate a custom AI detection model that begins analyzing live video feeds on the spot, with no model training, data labeling, or deployment lag required.

The announcement marks a fundamental shift in how AI-powered video surveillance works. Traditionally, building a detection model required extensive datasets, weeks of training, and significant technical resources. With IvedaAI’s new capability, that process is compressed to seconds. The moment a user submits a prompt, a custom AI model is constructed in real time and immediately applied to live or recorded video — turning a natural language instruction into an active, accurate detection engine.

“This is the greatest leap forward yet in real-time AI video analytics,” said David Ly, CEO and Founder of Iveda. “For years, building an AI detection model meant collecting data, labeling it, and waiting. Now, a retailer can type ‘shoplifting’ and, in seconds, have a fully functioning AI model running live across their camera network. That’s never been possible before — and the accuracy of what we’re detecting is remarkable.”

A Game-Changer for Retail Loss Prevention

Shoplifting has long been one of the most difficult behaviors to address through traditional AI surveillance. It manifests in countless forms — concealment in bags, pockets, clothing, or carts — across a wildly diverse range of individuals and store environments. No training dataset could ever completely capture every variation, which made automated detection unreliable at best.

IvedaAI’s zero-shot approach sidesteps that problem entirely. By leveraging advanced Vision Language Models (VLMs) alongside Iveda’s decade of pre-trained object detection models, the platform can interpret the intent and context behind behaviors, not just the static objects in frame. The capability is already being evaluated with one of the world’s largest fast-fashion retailers – with thousands of store locations across more than 90 countries – to address loss prevention at scale.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Theresa Pham, Head of Product @ Wayvia

In early testing, retailers saw immediate results. A prompt of “suspicious behavior” successfully flagged individuals peeking into windows and people repeatedly scanning staff-only entry points — demonstrating the system’s ability to detect intent-driven, pre-incident activity that would have been invisible to conventional analytics.

Additional retail-relevant detections now available via live prompt include:

• Shoplifting across diverse concealment methods
• Suspicious or pre-incident behavior
• Loitering in sensitive areas
• Graffiti attempts and vandalism indicators
• Smoking in restricted zones
• Fighting or aggressive conduct

All detections are available immediately upon prompt submission, directly within a retailer’s existing IvedaAI dashboard — no new login, no new infrastructure required.

How It Works: Two Deployment Options

IvedaAI’s real-time zero-shot detection is available through two pathways, designed to meet retailers’ varying security and infrastructure needs:

• Cloud-Connected Mode: Users can connect to large language model processing for live frame analysis without investing in additional on-site hardware. Ideal for organizations looking for rapid activation.
• Local Secure Deployment (Cosmos-Reason Engine): For retailers requiring closed-network environments, Iveda deploys a dedicated on-premise server powered by its proprietary Cosmos-Reason engine. This option ensures zero open ports and fully local processing — delivering the full power of real-time AI analysis without any cloud dependency. Iveda will begin shipping the next-generation Cosmos-Reason-2 engine within the coming quarter, further enhancing inference performance and detection accuracy.

Built on a Decade of AI Expertise

As a platform that has spent more than ten years developing and refining AI object detection—including weapons recognition, license plate identification, and facial recognition—Iveda is uniquely positioned to deploy zero-shot AI at scale. The new capability layers advanced VLM reasoning on top of that proven foundation, enabling detection performance that holds up in low-light, crowded, and complex retail environments.

“We’ve always been committed to staying at the cutting edge,” added Ly. “We’re already integrating the latest frameworks from NVIDIA and are continuously future-proofing the platform. What we’re announcing today is the result of years of foundational work meeting this new wave of AI capability — and retailers are going to feel the difference immediately.”