Drones capable of stunning and stopping perpetrators are on the horizon for law enforcement, according to Rick Smith, Axon co-founder and CEO.
“The drone that is capable of stopping somebody is in the future,” Smith said in a new episode of the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast. While current Axon drones provide real-time aerial awareness of a scene, the company is actively developing technology to deliver a non-lethal “effect” on targets.
Axon, originally founded in 1993 as Air Taser Inc. in a Tucson garage, was born from a personal tragedy: two of the Smith brothers’ high school teammates were killed in a road-rage shooting. Motivated to create alternatives to lethal force, they partnered with the original Taser inventor to modernise the technology.
The company nearly went bankrupt in the late 1990s but went public in 2001 and later rebranded to Axon in 2017 to reflect its broader mission as a public safety technology leader.
Axon now offers a wide range of tools for law enforcement, including:
– Body-worn and in-car cameras
– Drones and counter-drone systems
– Real-time operations platforms
– VR training hardware
In October 2024, Axon acquired Dedrone, a leader in airspace security and counter-drone technology, for approximately $391 million.
Smith was clear about ethical boundaries: “We will not make intentionally lethal drones.” While militaries use lethal autonomous weapons in war, Axon’s focus remains on de-escalation.
“Our purpose in this world is how do we take situations where historically the solution might be to kill somebody and find a way to not kill them,” Smith emphasised.
