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Dane County Public Safety Communications incorporated a new AI chatbot to their non-emergency phone line Aug. 18, according to the Isthmus.
Aurelian Virtual Assistant or “AVA” is an automated assistant, launched to handle non-emergency calls of service, according to the Dane County 911 website.
Dane County has approved a one-year contract for AVA for $155,000, with roughly 90% funded by grants and the other 10% paid for by Dane County, according to the Isthmus.
The Dane County non-emergency phone number, 608-255-2345, will now include AVA to provide information and assistance quickly and efficiently, handling information requests, department referrals and answering non-emergency questions, according to the website.
The non-emergency phone number previously worked on a “phone tree” in which callers would have to identify their questions into limited categories in order to obtain specific answers, according to the Isthmus.
AVA does not replace human communicators or dispatchers, and instead works to keep communicators free to handle and answer emergency calls quickly and efficiently, according to the website.
“The same communicators that answer 911 calls also answer the incoming non-emergency calls,” Deputy Director of Dane County Public Safety Communications Johnny Leonard said. “Last year about 53% of our call volume was non-emergency calls.”
Calls that require immediate response from police, fire, EMS or involving weapons should be made to 911 rather than the non-emergency phone number, but if an emergency is detected, AVA will transfer the call to the communications center, according to the website.
While every call may not be answered by a dispatcher, each call is reviewed within the week by a communicator to ensure the situation is handled appropriately by the AI system, according to Leonard.
Every so often, Public Safety Communications encounters something Leonard refers to as “edge cases” — situations that don’t fit into the mold of emergency or non-emergency calls and require a human element in decision-making.
Non-emergency line callers will still have the ability to speak with a human communicator if specifically requested. Priority will be given to emergency or 911 calls, while non-emergency calls will be placed on hold to be transferred to the next available human communicator, according to Leonard.
While the increased use of AI in emergency services is still highly controversial, Dane County Public Safety Communications view the AI program as a helpful tool for communication centers, according to Leonard.
“You’ve got a lot of emergency communication centers that are trying to do more with less, and we’re in a very good position staffing-wise to where we don’t need to rely on this technology as much as some other centers do,” Leonard said. “But you could really never have enough tools at your disposal when it comes to 911, right?”
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