America’s biggest police tech provider Axon has announced a range of new products this week, including two AI-powered license plate readers and car surveillance technologies. The launches will up the ante in its fierce rivalry with Flock Safety, the $7.5 billion venture backed startup that sells a suite of car surveillance tools.
Axon already sold license plate readers that go in cop cars, but its new tools, announced during the company’s product showcase this week, are designed to go on lightposts — just like Flock’s. Along with scanning the license plate, they can also record a car’s other distinguishing features, including if it has a bumper sticker or specific damage, allowing cops to search for something as detailed as “a blue Mercedes with a dent on the bonnet” across all cameras.
The product launch comes just over two months after Axon had a public bust up with Flock, which ended their partnership that allowed cops to easily share data between the two vendor systems. CEO Rick Smith had accused Flock of coercive behavior, strong-arming customers into moving over to its products in favour of Axon’s by charging excessive fees for integration, or making it impossible to combine its surveillance data with information harvested by other products. Smith said he was “embarrassed” to have ever recommended Flock. In response, Flock founder and CEO Garrett Langley had claimed it was Axon that was no longer interested in being “open and collaborative.” The company later described Smith’s comments as “baseless accusations.”
Axon’s first new product is a pole-mounted license plate reader, which Flock has been specializing in since its founding in 2017. For the second – a way to retrofit existing streetlights with the car surveillance tech — Axon turned to the same partner, smart streetlight company Ubicquia, that Flock began working with in 2023.
Axon said its car surveillance tech will have a drone component too. When a suspect car is identified, cops will be able to launch unmanned surveillance vehicles supplied by partner Skydio. The company was light on detail as the system is still in development, but CEO Smith told Forbes, “In certain cases where a vehicle needs to be tracked or identified, drones can be a powerful tool—not just to respond, but to get above the scene and assist with identification and situational awareness.”
The company also announced an AI voice assistant on Tuesday. Its Axon Assistant will be built into its latest bodycams and could translate over 50 languages for cops in the field. It can also be used by officers to query their department policies.
“That’s where an officer can ask questions like, ‘Do I need to notify a supervisor before transporting a juvenile?’ or ‘What’s the protocol for wearing a rain jacket with the uniform?’” Smith said. “Instead of digging through a hundred-page policy manual, the assistant quickly surfaces the relevant policy and citation—so officers can make confident, informed decisions in the moment.
“This is about removing friction and helping officers stay present.”
Among its final new launches on Tuesday was integration with Amazon’s Ring service. Users will be able to opt-in to providing police with access to their cameras, if cops ask for it. Flock has offered a similar integration over the last seven years.