- The vocal assistant Ai Aurelian helps the call centers at 911
- Aurelian already lives in more than a dozen American cities
- AI aims to release human distributors for real emergencies and reduce waiting times
The idea of AI that helps emergencies rightly raises suspicious eyebrows, but there can be a way for technology to facilitate the demands of emergency operators from 911 overloaded without becoming an emergency itself.
It is the field of a startup called Aurelian, which began to deploy an agent of the Voice AI to help the distribution centers in 911 to manage the tidal wave of non -urgent calls that arrive every day.
Although we are properly tending to consider 911 as a direct line using life or death, it turns out that this is often the first number called for what one could call an emergency only in a sitcom from the 1950s. Think of lost portfolios, illegally stationed cars and noisy celebrations. This is the default number that many call when they are annoyed, that they are faced with a real emergency, and that someone must recover and manage this call, generally a human distributor with a lot of training to help you help you as soon as possible, and to identify when the call is not an emergency by an extent of imagination.
At the hour 10 out of 16, trying four conversations at a time, while only one, if even that is an emergency, may not be the best use of their energy. The Aurélien presents himself as a solution to this problem, not to replace humans in position, but as a support service for them.
Aurelian’s response is to use AI as a distributor for distributors. If you call 911 and Auréliennes responses, he presents himself as an automated assistant and asks you why you call. Strong music complaints, flight reports, questions about the elimination of snow and similar non-emergence are dealt with through follow-up issues, making a report and the resettlement of information to the appropriate department. If the caller accidentally selects the bad line or begins to describe something that looks like a real emergency, the system transfers the call directly to a human distributor.
Since its launch last May, Aurelian says that his system has been at the other end of the 911 for almost five million people in the United States for these regions, Aurelian boasts that he manages approximately three-quarters of non-urgent calls, taking about three hours a day of the types of emergency distributors should not have to answer.
“The 911 is in crisis: serious responsibilities in sub-employed and constant expansion have made the ECCs surpassed and overloaded. At Aurelian, our only goal is to best help them to serve their communities,” said Aurelian CEO Max Keenan, in a press release. “The sensors of the 911 are trained to manage emergencies, not parking complaints. Aurelian reduces professional exhaustion and helps telecommunicators to stay focused on the most critical situations. ”
IA urgency
The narrow targeting of AI to solve the very clear problem of too many calls from 911 and not enough people to answer it is notable compared to some of the vast plans of other AI developers. The company has also just collected $ 14 million in a financing cycle to help on the scale and to resolve the imperfections to which any AI system is subject.
The company also wants to try to relieve any guild that people may have an AI service managing a job generally limited to humans. The idea is that AI does not replace emergencies, but that it can help filter the calls that the distributors are not supposed to face, but that can suck their time and all their energy.
They can save this objective to navigate in emotionally crazy calls and sensitive to time to real emergencies, those which require empathy, judgment and determination on their side.
It also changes the public experience. When you call to report something annoying but not urgent, you are no longer waiting for 45 minutes just to be told to fill out a form. You speak to a voice that can analyze your problem and submit the right report. And when you are in danger, there is a better chance that someone picks up faster because it does not block a complaint concerning a basket in an aisle. If we are looking for clues to how AI could really improve society, it may be the form it takes.
