A regional dispatch agency has turned to artificial intelligence to deal with a growing flood of non-emergency calls. Over the past five years, the agency saw a 90% increase in non-emergency calls, which translated into extensive hold times that were hard on the community. Officials said they did not like the situation and wanted a solution.
That solution is an AI system called Ava, created by a Seattle startup named Aurelion. At the agency, the same people who answer 911 calls also answer non-emergency calls, so the tool is meant to ease the pressure on staff who juggle both types of contact at once.
In a test of the system, a non-emergency call about a car parked in a fire lane went through with no hold time. After several questions, including whether the caller wanted an officer to follow up, the entire call took about three minutes to be logged, with the system confirming that the information had been submitted for review.
Once a call is logged, it becomes visible to dispatchers, who can then prioritize it on their end. According to the company, Ava's ability to rank non-emergency calls by their level of urgency has been a turning point for public safety, helping make sure people get the services they need as quickly as possible.
Aurelion co-founder Max Keenan said the calls handled this way are important and that people are calling for real reasons. Asked whether the technology would mean fewer jobs for people, he said it absolutely would not, stressing that the system would never replace a human being during an actual emergency.
The system first went online during the historic bomb cyclone of November 2024. In the first 48 hours of that event, dispatchers handled around 2,500 non-emergency calls, roughly three times the normal volume, an early stress test that the agency points to as a sign of what the tool can handle.