Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

The Smart Money: AI Moves from Promise to Platform

At Parks Associates' CONNECTIONS Conference, the AI data was encouraging, but the gaps – trust, complexity, and monetization – remain unsolved.

AI dominated all three days of Parks Associates' 30th annual CONNECTIONS Conference, linking security, energy, health, broadband, and workforce – but monetization, trust, and reduced complexity will determine how fast it transforms everyday living.

Across three days of Parks Associates' 30th annual CONNECTIONS Conference, AI emerged as the defining theme linking security, energy, broadband, infrastructure, mobility, and the future workforce. The message was consistent: AI is here, but the industry's ability to monetize it, build trust around it, and make it useful without overwhelming consumers will determine how quickly it transforms everyday living.

Parks Associates research shared during the opening workshop found that 58% of U.S. internet households use AI, while 16% pay a fee for AI tools. Jennifer Kent, SVP and principal analyst, noted that consumers now own an average of 17.8 connected devices – a wide installed base for AI-enabled services. But adoption does not equal trust. AI tools carry a Net Promoter Score of just 4, underscoring a significant gap between usage and confidence.

Additional data points from Parks Associates research of 8,000 U.S. internet households:

  • Roughly 50% of households have some form of security solution.
  • 31% of consumers intend to upgrade their security camera.
  • Rapid Response Monitoring reports it can clear 93% of calls without dispatching when richer context is available.
  • John Mack of Raymond James cited roughly $8 trillion in cash on corporate balance sheets globally, creating investment pressure around AI-enabled security and safety.

From the article, "The Smart Money: AI Moves from Promise to Platform" by Elizabeth Parks

 

Previously In The News

How Parks Associates Helped Shape 30 Years of Smart Home Innovation

In a video interview from CONNECTIONS 2026 in the Silicon Valley, Elizabeth Parks reflects on the evolution of the connected home market, the growing role of AI and why the dealer channel still ma...

TV Becomes a Growth Channel for Commerce

“Streaming video and connected TV in particular absolutely tend to outperform linear TV,” said Michael Goodman, a senior contributing analyst with Parks Associates, a Dallas-based market research...

OpenAI Eyes AI Agent Phone, Kuo Says

“OpenAI is not a hardware company and must prove its phone performs well against the competition in terms of memory, camera quality, size, weight, screen responsiveness — all of that can be a chal...

The Smart Money: The Evolution of Residential Access Control

According to Parks Associates’ research, ownership of smart door locks reached approximately 11% of U.S. internet households in Q2 2025, and smart garage door openers have reached the same adoption le...