Yesterday, GSX 2025 closed day two in New Orleans. Known as the Global Security Exchange, it’s the annual conference of ASIS International, the world’s largest association for security management professionals.
GSX 2025 Day Two Featured Extensive Program
On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the event featured an extensive program. This included education sessions, daily keynote speakers and general sessions, and a show floor with approximately 500 innovators from the security industry.
Tuesday’s general session, “The AI-Powered Security Paradigm,” featured Sol Rashidi, a bestselling, top 100 AI author, former Amazon and Fortune 100 C-suite executive and holder of 10 patents. She recounted the original intention for AI from when she was a key driver helping to launch IBM’s Watson.
According to Rashidi, “We never built Watson to replace people. We built it to amplify us. AI was never meant to replace and erode our ability to think critically, think independently, think autonomously. It was meant to accelerate. It was meant to facilitate. And we are forgetting those foundational principles.”
Rashidi also emphasized that ignoring AI is not an option, citing security risks posed by AI governance challenges including data leakage to third parties, training foundational models on sensitive data, and employees installing AI software without approval, as well as embedded AI capabilities.
GSX 2025 Day Two: Featured Sessions
GSX 2025 Day Two also featured sessions focusing on school security, executive protection and overall risk management. Jeffrey Slotnick, CPP, PSP co-chair, ASIS School Security Technical Committee, spoke on the recently released American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/ASIS School Security Standard, which can be found in eBook here and print here. This volunteer-driven standard took two and a half years and represents thousands of hours from a dedicated community of global security experts.
“While there are no simple solutions for creating completely secure educational environments, this standard was specifically designed to help schools systematically assess and address their unique risks,” Slotnick says. “This is a proactive tool to serve schools across the globe by providing practical, actionable guidance. Start with behavioral threat management and understanding when the threat is made and then what to do once you’re made aware of the threat.”
The Game Changer Session
The Game Changer session, “Risk is Everywhere: Fostering Safety in the Workplace, Schools, and Public Spaces,” featured AlGene Caraulia, vice president of integration and sustainability at Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI); Don Aviv, CPP, PSP, PCI, CEO at Interfor International; and Theresa Campbell, CEO and founder at Safer Schools Together (SST). The session was moderated by Claire Meyer, editor in chief at Security Management, and addressed managing risk regardless of location and discussed the particularly relevant example of the faulty bollard system on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. The faulty bollard, noted by speaker Don Aviv in a 2019 risk report, would become a critical reason why the truck attack on Bourbon Street in January of 2025 occurred.
Threat assessment represented a core aspect of the session. According to Aviv, “At the end of the day, the concept of a threat assessment, the concept of protecting—whether it’s your schools, it’s your corporations or celebrities—comes down to the same function: identifying the threat, assessing the threat, and most importantly determining the propensity towards violence.”
The Final Day of GSX
Today, the final day of GSX, Wednesday, October 1, will feature a Military and Law Enforcement Appreciation Day (MLEAD) celebration honoring the individuals who make our communities and world a safer place. As a thank you for your service, all law enforcement, military, and first responders receive a free one-day pass to GSX 2025.
Additional highlights of upcoming sessions today include the following:
- Keynote Address: Lasting Leadership Lessons from the World’s Second Oldest Profession from General Paul M. Nakasone, a former commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency (NSA)
- Game Changer: Resilience Amid Changing Conditions: Partnerships, Risk Transference, and New Patterns to Predict
- Securing The Spotlight: Public-Private Partnerships in Major Event Security
- From Reactive to Proactive: How AI and Human Verification Revolutionize Incident Reporting
- The Geopolitical Drivers of Insider Threats
- Transforming Security Planning: AI and Predictive Analytics for Master Plan Success
