Ruthie Hauge
Dane County dispatch.
Dane County dispatchers receive about 375,000 calls a year.
Now, when you call Dane County’s non-emergency police line, a male voice warns that you’re about to hear a recorded automated assistant. Then “AVA” comes on: a pleasant female voice inviting you to “tell me why you’re calling.”
She’s not human. Dane County launched an AI chatbot on Aug. 18 to handle non-emergency calls for service. County officials say the switch won’t displace staff and promises to speed up answers for callers and free up dispatchers to focus on emergencies.
Dane County Public Safety Communications, operating out of a downtown office, answers about 375,000 calls a year, or just over 1,000 calls a day ( late summer sees a higher volume of calls than winter). About 200,000 of those calls are to the non-emergency line, the remaining 175,000 are emergencies. They come from all over the county, across nearly 70 police, fire and EMS agencies. (Some jurisdictions, including Sun Prairie, UW-Madison, Stoughton, Monona and Middleton handle their own non-emergency calls.)
Answering those calls are roughly 77 public safety communicators, their eyes on multiple screens, working in teams of as few as 10 people in the early morning to as many as 15 in the late afternoon. Even those numbers are a bit deceiving, says Johnny Leonard, deputy director of Dane County Public Safety Communications, because half the team is assigned to dispatch at any one time. The number of people actually answering calls are “definitely going to be in the single digits at any hour.”
Leonard is emphatic that AVA won’t replace any jobs, and provides a more practical reason for the switch: it replaces outdated technology. The county was relying on a “functionally limited” interactive phone tree they learned would soon no longer be supported by its vendor; they started looking for a new vendor, finding few options. Enter AVA, which its developers claim can hold conversations in 45 languages. It can also monitor calls for an “escalating emergency,” transferring to a live dispatcher when needed, something the county’s old system couldn’t handle.
Dane County officials have approved a one-year contract for AVA, which will last through May 2027; in total, the AI costs $155,000 (the first year comes cheap, thanks to a state grant subsidizing 90% of the cost). Officials have laid down some rules, requiring administrators to submit quarterly reports, give an opportunity for dispatchers to provide feedback, and actively recruit for vacant dispatcher positions. The county board will use that information to decide whether to extend the contract.
AVA is a product of Aurelian, a company founded in 2022 by James Liu, a former software engineer at Microsoft, and Max Keenan, a former analyst at investment bank Moelis & Company. Aurelian explicitly markets their products to dispatch centers; they also offer a separate product which Dane County is not using: CORA, an “on-screen assistant” that delivers real-time “guidance” for emergency dispatchers.
These products fall under what is called in venture capitalist circles “GovTech.” Aurelian is backed by Y Combinator, a startup accelerator responsible for commercial heavy hitters like DoorDash, Airbnb and Instacart, but also Flock and a host of other AI-powered police assistants.
