[CCCNFBW] [clccb] Clark County’s 911 center launches AI system to handle nonemergency calls

[Abby Griffith]

This is interesting. And kind of scary.



Thank you,

Abby Griffith


On Wed, Jun 17, 2026 at 11:41 AM Merribeth Greenberg via wcblists.org
<merribethgreenberg=gmail.com at wcblists.org> wrote:

> I found this interesting.
>
> Clark County’s 911 center launches AI system to handle nonemergency calls
> AVA intended to ease demand on human call takers, officials say
> By Tyler Brown, Columbian Staff Reporter
> Published: June 15, 2026, 1:17pm
> Updated: June 16, 2026, 8:54am
> Clark County’s 911 center launches AI system to handle nonemergency calls
> - The Columbian
> <https://www.columbian.com/news/2026/jun/15/cresa-launches-ai-system-to-handle-nonemergency-calls/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=Morning+Briefing>
>
> Clark County’s emergency dispatch center is turning to AI to ease the
> burden on human 911 call takers.
>
> Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency has launched AVA, a new
> artificial intelligence system to handle nonemergency calls. CRESA
> administrators hope the system will help address the dispatch center’s
> address staffing constraints.
>
> Developed by the technology company Aurelian, AVA is intended to free up
> live operators by fielding 311 calls and allowing call takers to prioritize
> 911 emergencies for the county’s 500,000 residents, said Andrew Hahn with
> Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency.
>
> But it’s not like a traditional keypad phone tree, according to a news
> release from Aurelian. AVA is designed to engage callers in natural
> conversation and respond to inflection and tone in English, Spanish,
> Ukrainian and Russian, the most common languages requiring assistance in
> Clark County, Hahn said.
>
> “Dispatch centers across the country are being asked to do more with the
> same teams, and the agencies that respond best are the ones that find ways
> to protect their telecommunicators’ time,” Max Keenan, CEO and founder of
> Aurelian, said in a news release. “CRESA has built a strong regional
> operation that serves a large and growing population. Deploying AVA means
> their call takers and dispatchers can meet every emergency without being
> pulled away by calls that don’t require them.”
>
> As of Monday, over 3 million calls have been handled by AVA and CORA,
> another AI system from Aurelian, according to its website.
>
> Hahn said the AI can scale to handle a large volume of concurrent calls
> without a hold system and is currently answering half of the nonemergency
> volume. He said CRESA typically has about five call takers on the floor at
> a time who answer about 1,500 calls per day — 600 nonemergency and 900
> emergency.
>
> CRESA does not have a metric for queue wait times, but callers who reach
> AVA are assisted immediately, Hahn said.
>
> Hahn said call takers average a pickup time of under 15 seconds, but
> maintaining that speed relies entirely on staffing levels, which face
> severe physical and procedural bottlenecks. He said CRESA’s budget is not
> the primary constraint limiting new hires; rather, the facility lacks the
> physical space to add more than its current 15 to 20 workstations.
>
> The hiring time for a telecommunicator can take up to eight or nine
> months, requiring extensive public safety background checks, as well as
> psychological and physical hearing examinations. Hahn said many applicants
> drop out because they cannot wait for the process to conclude, saying the
> agency recently closed applications for a role that will not officially
> start until 2027.
>
> Because of these staffing constraints, preserving human energy for real
> emergencies is critical, Hahn said. By fielding 311 calls, AVA directly
> relieves the call takers and allows them to focus their attention on
> life-threatening emergencies.
>
> “The big thing to note is call takers have an extraordinary amount of
> task-handling they have to manage. It is a shocking thing to listen to the
> kinds of calls these people have to take,” Hahn said. “One call can be
> someone calling to complain about, ‘Hey, my neighbors’ music woke up my
> baby.’ But the next call can be ‘My baby is blue in the face.’ ”
>
> To prevent serious technological errors or so-called AI hallucinations
> from interfering with emergency responses, AVA primarily collects
> information, transcribes calls and follows strict routing rules to provide
> forms or send codes. Hahn said the AI actively monitors a caller’s tone of
> voice and listens for specific triggers. If an emergency is described or
> someone sounds like they’re in a panic, AVA automatically kicks the call
> over to a live agent.
>
> Hahn stressed that deploying AI will not lead to job losses.
>
> “People are wary that this is a way to cut staff, but that’s just not the
> case. Real humans are the heroes, and we want to make sure they’re well
> taken care of,” Hahn said. “This is meant to lighten their load and handle
> nonemergency calls faster without having to wait as long.”
>
> Dave Fuller, director of CRESA, echoed this sentiment in the agency’s news
> release.
>
> “Our telecommunicators are the critical link between our community and the
> first responders,” Fuller said. “Every nonemergent or routine call that AVA
> handles is time and focus returned to answering and responding to emergency
> calls. For the people we serve, that means quicker access to help when it
> matters most.”
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Beth Greenberg
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