The Buena Park Police Department will soon have an AI-assistant taking non-emergency phone calls instead of dispatchers.
On Tuesday, city council members gave city staff direction to enter into an agreement with Aurelian – a company that specializes in making call-automation technology for police dispatchers. This agreement will enter Buena Park into a $25,000 one-year pilot program with the company in which two AI-assistants will be placed inside the police department’s call systems.
An AI-assistant nicknamed “Ava” would be answering calls on the Buena Park PD’s non-emergency phone line. According to Police Captain Nghia Nguyen, the technology will reduce non-emergency calls handled by dispatchers by 70%.
“Every call is answered with zero hold times. So the system can handle over 100 calls at one point, and then multiple calls are answered simultaneously,” Nguyen said.
Despite the advantages, council members questioned the system, emphasizing a need for humans to remain in full control of the technology and in emergency situations.
Mayor Connor Traut expressed concerns over community acceptance for the AI-assistants, noting that there may be fears on whether or not the automation will be able to effectively service non-emergency calls.
“The general sentiment of the public, from my perspective, is that when you call in and you suddenly get AI and bots, that decreases the community connection that we have, the customer service experience that folks have,” Traut said.
The Buena Park police captain explained the automation supports 50 different languages and can send informational links to callers, transfer people to different departments, and automates calls to community members when a big event or situation is happening in the city.
Nguyen also noted once the information given to Ava is validated by the caller, the assistant will submit it to live dispatchers that can review the information and send officers to help. A summary of the call will be made by the AI-assistant as the call is taking place for dispatchers to review as well.
The calls will also be recorded and stored so that dispatchers can review the recording if needed.
According to Nguyen, if someone calls the line and an actual emergency is taking place, the assistant automatically pushes the call to a live dispatcher.
“So there are times when people call the business line because they don’t believe their situation is an emergency. Because they don’t want to call 9-1-1, they don’t want to tie up the lines for whatever reason, and seven to 10% of those calls could be emergencies,” Nguyen said.
“The technology is smart enough to identify when that’s the case and to push those calls straight to a live dispatcher.”
However, another AI-assistant will be helping live dispatchers during 9-1-1 calls.
Nicknamed “Cora”, this technology won’t be taking emergency calls, but will assist dispatchers during each 9-1-1 call, making sure that call-takers are asking the right questions during specific types of calls.
The assistant will be on-screen for call-takers, highlighting missed questions or details based on the Buena Park PD’s standards and policies that they might’ve forgotten to ask.
The technology will also immediately transcribe a summary of the call and will validate the location of where each 9-1-1 call is taking place.
“That’s really important because we want to make sure that wherever the emergency is is where we’re sending our officers,” Nguyen said.
According to Nguyen, the goal for putting this technology in place is to eliminate hold times for community members using the non-emergency phone line, create faster access to assistance, decrease dispatcher burnout and improve employee retention.
Council members Susan Sonne and Carlos Franco questioned whether any data will be gathered or shared to Aurelian or third party vendors.
However, according to Nguyen, there is no data retention on the information from Aurelian. All information will be used for the Buena Park PD only and will not be shared with any third parties, confirming that an agreement to never share any data from the department is in the one-year contract.
Sonne also expressed concern for the capabilities of the system to perform correctly when a person calling in is hard to understand or hear, noting how the examples shown in Nguyen’s presentation “didn’t feel like real life.”
“They didn’t include any extraneous information, emotion, there wasn’t background noise, there was nobody sobbing, there wasn’t a party in the background,” Sonne said. “It felt like an example of a setup script that this is exactly what you want to happen for things to happen most quickly and efficiently.”
Nguyen answered by saying the calls will only be for non-emergencies, explaining that if the call cannot be understood, the default of the system will be to push the call to a live dispatcher.
Dispatch Supervisor Maria Esquetini expressed her support for the call-automation system, noting the many benefits that the AI assistant offers to police staff and community members.
“It sounds scary because it’s AI,” Esquetini said, adding, “AI is being introduced into our industry because of the lack of staffing our centers have, and this is one avenue that is going to save the centers.”
Sara Leon is a Voice of OC intern. You can reach her at sleon7903@gmail.com.
