Exclusive: Washington county getting new 911 "AI copilot"

Driving the news: Sno911, the emergency dispatch agency for Snohomish County, will announce on Thursday that it has partnered with Seattle-based AI startup Aurelian to launch the feature.

• The county already uses an Aurelian AI system named Ava to redirect non-emergency 911 calls, helping reduce call volume for understaffed dispatchers.
• Sno911 handles 911 calls and coordinates police, fire and medical responses across the county.

How it works: Dispatchers fielding emergency calls to Sno911 will now have an AI on-screen assistant called Cora, who will listen to the caller and dispatcher.

• Cora will offer suggestions to the dispatchers for questions to ask, provide other phone numbers or suggest instructions to give distraught callers, Sno911 director Kurt Mills tells Axios.
• A human dispatcher remains in control and uses the AI assistant as a guide and to help reduce time to handle the emergency, so that a dispatcher can contact the right people among 40+ agencies in the county.

What they're saying: Sno911 operations manager Derek Wilson tells Axios the goal is not to replace dispatchers, but to augment them — turning live transcription into real-time coaching that catches missed questions.

• "You have a chance to either not go down the wrong route or not make a mistake, or at least promptly correct a mistake and resolve it even before hanging up."

The intrigue: Aurelian's CEO Max Keenan tells Axios the company already has deployed the Ava system for non-emergency calls to more than 30 departments.

• Wilson said Ava helped reduce the number of calls to Sno911 by more than 80,000 last year.

What to watch: Aurelian and Sno911 said they are monitoring feedback from dispatchers on how the system recognizes accents or corrects any mistakes.

More from Axios:

• AI drones are America's newest cops
• AI can't hear everyone equally