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CORTLAND, N.Y. — Cortland County Emergency Response and Communications has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered virtual assistant to manage non-emergency public safety calls, marking a significant step toward modernizing emergency communications operations while preserving human-led 911 emergency response.
The AI assistant, known as Ava, has been integrated exclusively into the county's non-emergency telephone lines to handle routine requests such as parking inquiries, public information, records requests, and other administrative services. Emergency 911 calls continue to be answered directly by trained human dispatchers.
According to Cortland County Emergency Response and Communications Assistant Director Tim Hines, the AI platform has been customized to support local operational requirements while ensuring callers can quickly reach the appropriate resources.
"Ava is designed to improve customer service by handling routine interactions, allowing our dispatchers to dedicate more attention to emergency incidents," Hines explained.
A key feature of the AI system is its ability to distinguish between routine and emergency situations in real time. If callers describe an emergency—or if the software detects signs of distress, elevated emotion, excessive background noise, or uncertainty—the call is immediately transferred to a human emergency dispatcher.
Likewise, requests beyond Ava's capabilities are seamlessly escalated to communications personnel, ensuring callers always receive appropriate assistance.
The AI platform uses advanced natural language processing and speech recognition technologies to understand conversational requests rather than relying solely on menu-based interactions.
County officials expect the system to deliver its greatest operational benefits during periods of unusually high call volumes, including severe weather events, utility outages, and other community-wide incidents.
During a recent power outage affecting thousands of residents, dispatchers were inundated with calls reporting electrical outages and malfunctioning traffic signals—many of which were non-emergency situations that consumed valuable dispatcher resources.
By automatically processing these routine reports, Ava enables emergency communications personnel to remain available for life-threatening incidents and urgent 911 calls.
The AI platform's developer, Aurelian, reports that agencies using the technology have reduced dispatcher workload by approximately 15 hours per week, helping improve operational efficiency without compromising emergency response capabilities.
County officials also view AI as a practical solution to ongoing staffing and budget constraints affecting many public safety agencies nationwide.
Emergency Response and Communications Director Scott Roman emphasized that the technology is intended to complement—not replace—existing dispatch personnel.
"Our objective is not workforce reduction," Roman said. "The goal is to remove routine administrative calls from dispatcher workloads so they remain fully prepared to respond when genuine emergencies occur."
The implementation was funded entirely through New York State emergency communications grants, with no local taxpayer funding used for the deployment.
Before selecting the platform, Cortland County conducted an extensive evaluation of AI providers with a strong emphasis on cybersecurity and government data protection.
Officials stated that all data collected through Ava remains the property of Cortland County Emergency Response and Communications and is stored within encrypted, government-grade cloud infrastructure hosted in the United States.
The AI platform complies with public-sector security requirements while allowing the county to continuously improve system performance using locally controlled operational data.
Although some callers initially expressed hesitation about interacting with an AI assistant, county officials report that public acceptance has steadily improved as residents become more familiar with the technology.
The department continues to emphasize that Ava serves exclusively as a non-emergency communications tool and that anyone experiencing an emergency should always dial 911, where a trained human dispatcher will immediately answer the call.
Officials reaffirmed that AI is being deployed to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer service, and strengthen emergency response readiness—not to replace the human expertise that remains central to public safety communications.
