“Ava’ to Help Answer Non-Emergency Calls
Artificial intelligence is taking on a new role at the Plant City Police Department (PCPD): answering the phone.
Meet Ava, an AI-powered assistant that will help Plant City police handle routine, non-emergency calls and give human dispatchers more time to focus on 911 calls and other emergencies.
PCPD is partnering with technology company Aurelian, the creator of Ava, under a $40,000, one-year agreement approved by the City Commission. The purchase is funded through the Police Department’s approved fiscal year 2026 budget.
Ava isn’t replacing Plant City’s dispatchers. Instead, she is designed to handle routine calls that don’t require immediate assistance from a human dispatcher, freeing communications personnel to focus on calls that require human judgment and emergency response.
Police Chief Mills presented information about the proposed purchase at the March 23 City Commission meeting, including an analysis of the department’s non-emergency calls.
Aurelian analyzed 1,046 Plant City Police Department non-emergency calls and determined that 733, or about 70%, could potentially be fully handled by Ava. Of the remaining 313 calls, 77 were flagged as potentially emergent, while 236 were identified as non-emergency calls better handled by a human dispatcher.
City Manager Bill McDaniel said the decision to implement Ava is primarily about managing the workload facing police communications personnel.
“Adding this tool is about workload management,” McDaniel said. “By directing non-emergency, routine queries to the AI assistant, the workload is reduced on the police personnel responsible for answering both non-emergency and 911 lines. The goal is to help these operators be more effective and efficient in dealing with emergency calls.”
So, what is it like to actually talk to an AI police assistant?
PCPD Communications Manager Jessica Alexander offers a simple piece of advice: Just talk to her.
“The number one tip we want to share with our community is this: Just talk to Ava like you would a real dispatcher,” Alexander said. “Answer Ava’s questions naturally, give it details and she’ll take it from there. The more you work with Ava, the faster we can get the right help responding.”
A YouTube demonstration shows how the process works.
A caller wants to report a neighbor mowing the lawn early in the morning.
“I need to report a noise complaint. My neighbor’s out here mowing and it is so early,” the caller says.
Ava responds by asking for the exact address where the noise is coming from, including an apartment or unit number.
She then asks additional questions about the situation, including the caller’s name, callback number and whether the caller wants to meet with an officer in person.
In other words, Ava does what a human dispatcher would do: she asks questions and gathers the details.
The information collected during the call, along with a transcript and audio recording, is displayed on a dashboard for a Plant City dispatcher to review. A computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, call can be created when necessary.
For callers using a wireless device, Ava also sends a text message at the end of the conversation letting them know the call was received and reviewed by dispatch.
Ava knows when to call for backup
The more important question is what happens when a caller isn’t simply complaining about an early-morning lawn mower.
Ava is designed to recognize indicators of an emergency. According to Aurelian and the police department, the system continuously analyzes a caller’s speech patterns, tone, pace, volume and language.
When certain indicators exceed preset thresholds, Ava can escalate the call and route it to a live 911 dispatcher without requiring the caller to specifically request a transfer.
“If your call is an emergency, always remember to call 911,” Alexander said.
That distinction is an important part of the system. Ava is intended to take routine calls off the plates of human dispatchers, not try to handle emergencies on her own.
McDaniel said the primary purpose of the technology is not to save money, but to improve efficiency and response times by shifting routine calls away from human dispatchers.
“This project was about saving time in connecting emergency calls by shifting the workload associated with routing non-emergency calls,” McDaniel said. “It is about effectiveness and efficiency when it comes to connecting callers with emergency services.”
For residents, Ava is intended to provide another way to report routine, non-emergency concerns and obtain information. For dispatchers, the goal is to reduce the number of routine calls they must personally handle so they can concentrate on emergencies.
So, the next time you need to make a non-emergency call to the Plant City Police Department, you may find yourself talking to Ava.
Just remember: If it’s an emergency, skip the small talk and call 911.
