EmpfangoThe short answer
In 2026, AI in security services is expected mainly in three areas: video and remote monitoring, customer service and communication, and quality assurance and dispatch. According to Lünendonk, 86% of providers expect AI to be standard within two to three years.
For the control room this does not mean a machine handles the alarm. It means routine calls no longer land on the same line as the alarm: sick calls from the night guard, shift questions, information for clients, applicants, sales calls. This article puts the Lünendonk and BDSW figures in context and draws the line between what an AI phone assistant takes over and what stays with the control room.
The numbers: Lünendonk 2026 and BDSW
Germany's private security industry comprises 4,517 companies with around 291,000 employees and expected revenue of €14.75 bn in 2025. Revenue has doubled since 2015.
- Reading 1: the market is growing, but staff are missing. 5,478 open positions and around 4,400 small and medium-sized companies that together hold about 56% of revenue mean the office line is often answered by the same person who runs operations.
- Reading 2: “customer service and communication” is listed as an AI area in the study. Industry software for security companies (dispatch, guard logbooks) has no telephony so far, and on 14 Oct 2026 no AI phone provider had a page for security services. The area is named, but not taken.
- For comparison, facility services: 84% see AI as the most important trend, only 11% use AI-based solutions, and 64% cite missing budgets as the main obstacle (Lünendonk facility service study 2026).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Providers expecting AI to be standard within 2–3 years | 86% | Lünendonk study on security service providers 2026, cited by rationell reinigen, 30 Sept 2026 |
| Providers seeing client demand for AI services | 40% | Lünendonk 2026, ibid. |
| Providers already marketing AI services | 19% | Lünendonk 2026, ibid. |
| AI application areas named | Video/remote monitoring; customer service and communication; quality assurance/dispatch | Lünendonk 2026, ibid. |
| Security companies in Germany | 4,517 (plus 666 detective agencies) | BDSW press release, 12 March 2026 |
| Employees (30 June 2025) | 290,871, of which 276,987 in guarding and security services | BDSW press release, 12 March 2026 |
| Revenue | €14.02 bn (2024), €14.75 bn (2025, forecast), €6.96 bn (2015) | BDSW press release, 12 March 2026 |
| Open positions (02/2026) | 5,478 | BDSW press release, 12 March 2026 |
| Market share of the 25 largest providers | around 40% | Lünendonk list 10/2025, cited by bdsw.de |
What runs over a single line in the control room today
In many smaller security companies, the same person takes the alarm, the sick call from the night guard and the client's question whether the patrol has been done.
Job adverts for dispatchers show the profile: “organise cover for absences”, “handle short-notice staff shortages”, “on-call duty at least one week per month” (job adverts by Sicherheit Nord, Contact Sicherheit and bob security, retrieved 14 Oct 2026). The rostering provider secplaner describes the consequence: if the only night guard is absent and nobody steps in, the colleague on site cannot leave and works a second shift. Changes organised “only by phone or chat” quickly lead to breaches of the Working Hours Act.
For operations managers, on-call duty in practice means: at night, the private mobile is the control room. Every call that arrives there has to be sorted first: is it the client looking for an invoice, or the night guard who will not be on site in 20 minutes? That sorting is the real burden, not the individual conversation. It costs sleep, and it costs attention for the call that is actually urgent.
The calls arriving on this line differ widely in urgency and frequency:
- Alarm or incident on site: rare, critical, needs a person with decision-making authority immediately.
- Shift absence at night or early morning: frequent, time pressure, needs a complete report and then a dispatcher.
- Clients: “Has the patrol been done?”, “Who was on site last night?”, mostly during office hours, mostly a piece of information.
- Applicants: with 5,478 open positions a valuable call that often ends on voicemail.
- Suppliers and sales calls: never put through, take a callback note.
- Prospects and questions on tenders: rare, high value, needs site size, service and callback number.
Routine or alarm: the line an AI phone assistant keeps
In security services, an AI phone assistant takes over routine calls. Receiving, assessing and responding to alarms stays with people in the control room. Empfango is not an alarm receiving system and does not replace an alarm receiving centre.
Empfango answers the call, identifies the request and captures it in a structured way: name, callback number, site, request. Routine is reported; urgent calls are forwarded to the on-call contact. If nobody picks up, the transfer ends after a ring timeout; Empfango records a callback and notifies operations via WhatsApp, Telegram, email or webhook. Empfango does not decide on an alarm and does not trigger a response; it makes sure the call is not lost. How this chain is set up is described under on-call and escalation.
- Routine that Empfango handles: sick calls and shift absences (name, site, shift, callback number, report to operations); information for clients from the knowledge base, optionally with patrol data from LiteLog; applicants with appointment booking or transfer to HR; sales calls as a callback note; prospects with site size and service.
- Alarms that stay with people: alarm signals from monitored systems go through your control room, not the office number. If someone calls the office number with an incident, Empfango immediately forwards to the on-call contact and documents the attempt.
- What Empfango does not do: no rescheduling in the roster, no calls to replacement staff, no writing into dispatch or guard logbook systems without a webhook, no alarm follow-up.
What this changes for dispatch and night on-call
At 10:40 p.m. the dispatcher receives a structured report instead of a call: who is absent, which site, which shift, which callback number. Finding cover remains their job, but it starts with complete data.
Every call is stored as a transcript with a summary in the dashboard. For the client who asks the next morning when the absence was reported, there is a timestamp instead of a memory. Via webhook, the reports land in your own systems; if you use LiteLog, they appear directly in the LiteLog portal. Both are optional. The page AI phone assistant for security companies describes five typical calls of one day with their respective flow; a real-world example is the Sekuris Dienstleistungen reference.
Setup changes nothing in the control room. The office or switchboard number is forwarded to Empfango, permanently, only outside office hours or only when nobody picks up. The on-call numbers are stored in the dashboard. Monitored alarm systems are unaffected because they do not run over this number. A test call shows the flow before you change anything.
On compliance: every call starts with a fixed announcement that an AI assistant is speaking. Speech and text are processed in the EU (Azure OpenAI EU, Deepgram EU; voice output via ElevenLabs US under a data processing agreement), and audio is not stored permanently. This covers the transparency obligations of the EU AI Act for AI systems in customer contact; details under privacy and DPA.
Frequently asked questions
No. The control room receives and assesses alarms and manages the response. Empfango takes the routine calls on the office or switchboard number so the control room does not have to sort sick calls from alarms.
86% of the security service providers surveyed expect AI to be standard within two to three years; 40% see client demand, 19% already market AI services. The study names video and remote monitoring, customer service and communication, and quality assurance and dispatch as application areas (cited by rationell reinigen, 30 Sept 2026).
Empfango forwards the call to the on-call contact on file. If nobody answers, Empfango records name, callback number, site and request after the ring timeout and notifies operations immediately via WhatsApp, Telegram or email. Monitored alarm systems do not belong on this number; they belong in your control room.
Empfango starts at €99 per month at a fixed price with no overage billing for minutes, see pricing. For comparison: the only human answering service with its own page for security and guarding companies offers a 24/7 package from €199 per month plus €0.99 per minute (Die Telefonhelden, retrieved 14 Oct 2026).
Conclusion: take the area that has been named
The Lünendonk 2026 study names customer service and communication as an AI area in security services, and 86% of providers expect AI to become standard. For the control room, the benefit is not in the alarm but next to it: in the routine calls that today tie up the same line and the same person. An AI phone assistant answers those calls, captures them completely and forwards only what really needs a person. The alarm stays where it belongs.