San Diego County California Sheriff’s Office Using Artificial Intelligence to Answer Nonemergency Calls
Publish Date: 2026-03-17 11:50:00
Source Domain: www.officer.com
- The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office has implemented an artificial intelligence (AI) system to handle nonemergency calls on its non-911 call line.
- The AI system routes nonemergency calls away from 9-1-1 dispatchers who handle true emergencies, thus freeing up lines and speeding up the response for genuine calls needing a dispatcher.
- The AI system interacts with callers and seeks to determine their needs based on context, not keywords, to ensure accurate routing.
- When the AI is unsure, it places callers in a queue for a 9-1-1 dispatcher, which has reduced average hold times for such calls from 211 seconds to 128 seconds.
- The department is also establishing a team of remote, lower-cost nonemergency dispatchers expected to handle nearly half of nonemergency calls by later this year.
- The implementation cost was about $50,000, with an annual operational cost expected to be $150,000 from the technology budget.
- AI was trained to understand local terminology and phrases used by callers, ensuring more accurate and localized routing.
- The Sheriff’s Office collaborated with Hyper, an AI technology provider also used by the Toronto Police Department.
