When students in suburban Atlanta returned to school for in-person classes amid the pandemic, they were required to mask up, like in many places across the US. Yet in this 95,000-student district, officials took mask compliance a step further than most. Through a network of security cameras, officials harnessed artificial intelligence to identify students whose masks drooped below their noses. "If they say a picture is worth a thousand words, if I send you a piece of video – it's probably worth a million," said Paul Hildreth, the district's emergency operations coordinator. "You really can't deny, 'Oh yeah, that's me, I took my mask off.'"

Paul Hildreth looked at images from security cameras set up at schools in Fulton County, Georgia. He began watching a video of a woman walking inside one of the school buildings. The top of her clothing was bright yellow. Hildreth used his computer's artificial intelligence, or AI system to find other images of the woman. The system put the pictures together in a video that showed where she currently was, where she had been and what she was doing.

In this July 30, 2019, photo, Paul Hildreth, emergency operations coordinator for the Fulton County School District, works in the emergency operations center at the Fulton County School District Administration Center in Atlanta. Artificial Intelligence is transforming surveillance cameras from passive sentries into active observers that can immediately spot a gunman, alert retailers when someone is shoplifting and help police quickly find suspects. Schools, such as the Fulton County School District, are among the most enthusiastic adopters of the technology. Paul Hildreth peered at a display of dozens of images from security cameras surveying his Atlanta school district and settled on one showing a woman in a bright yellow shirt walking a hallway. A mouse click instructed the artificial intelligence-equipped system to find other images of the woman, and it immediately stitched them into a video narrative of where she was currently, where she had been and where she was going. There was no threat, but Hildreth's demonstration showed what's possible with AI-powered cameras.

Paul Hildreth peered at a display of dozens of images from security cameras surveying his Atlanta school district and settled on one showing a woman in a bright yellow shirt walking a hallway. A mouse click instructed the artificial intelligence-equipped system to find other images of the woman, and it immediately stitched them into a video narrative of where she was currently, where she had been and where she was going. There was no threat, but Hildreth's demonstration showed what's possible with AI-powered cameras. If a gunman were in one of his schools, the cameras could quickly identify the shooter's location and movements, allowing police to end the threat as soon as possible, said Hildreth, emergency operations coordinator for the Fulton County School District. AI is transforming surveillance cameras from passive sentries into active observers that can identify people, suspicious behavior and guns, amassing large amounts of data that help them learn over time to recognize mannerisms, gait and dress.