(C) Vecteezy

SEOUL — The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on March 10, 2026, a sweeping plan to transform more than half of its massive surveillance network into "Intelligent CCTV" systems powered by Artificial Intelligence. This initiative aims to drastically enhance public safety and reduce the margin of error in crime and accident prevention.

According to city officials, Seoul targets an intelligence conversion rate of 51.8% for its 120,000 closed-circuit television cameras by the end of this year. This means the number of AI-equipped units will rise from the current 57,000 to approximately 64,000.

From Simple Detection to Contextual Understanding
The move comes as a response to the limitations of existing "Intelligent CCTV" systems, which often suffer from high false-positive rates. While current models can distinguish between objects like humans and vehicles, they frequently struggle to interpret the specific context of an action, leading to unnecessary alerts.

To solve this, Seoul is launching a pilot project to integrate Generative AI based on Small Large Language Models (sLLM). Unlike traditional systems, this "Generative AI Monitoring" can analyze the behavioral context of a scene—distinguishing, for instance, between a person simply lying down to rest and someone collapsing due to a medical emergency.

Alleviating the Burden on Human Operators
The digital upgrade is also a necessity for the city's overstretched workforce. Currently, a single monitoring agent at the Seoul CCTV Safety Center is responsible for an average of 1,200 cameras.

"By evolving into a hybrid monitoring system that uses Intelligent CCTV for detection and Generative AI for precise context analysis, we will reduce the burden on personnel and maximize operational efficiency," said Kang Ok-hyun, Director of Seoul’s Digital City Bureau.

A Smarter Safety Net
This project is part of a larger roadmap initiated in 2023 to modernize the city's 25 autonomous districts' monitoring systems. By shifting toward a proactive, AI-driven model, Seoul expects to provide faster response times to crimes, fires, and medical crises, solidifying its position as one of the world's leading smart cities.