Anoka County to use AI for non-emergency dispatch calls

ANOKA COUNTY, Minn. (FOX 9) - Anoka County is set to use artifical intelligence (AI) to field non-emergency dispatch calls.

What we know:

According to Anoka County officials, the county's Emergency Communication Center (ECC) will implement AI for non-emergency dispatch calls.

Officials say they are implementing the new technology to "improve emergency response service."

The AI will be called Eric or Erica, and will field incoming calls to the non-emergency line. It will gather "critical" information, and will hopefully give human call takers more capacity to take high-priority emergency calls.

Gradual testing of the AI will start in May and will be fully launched by summer. Some live-testing periods will be happening in the coming weeks.

911 calls will still be answered by humans, county officials say.

Officials say if community members are curious about the AI, they can call this demo line: 218-535-7675.

What they're saying:

"Our goal is to introduce this technology in a careful, transparent, and community-centered way," said Kari Morrissey, Director of the ECC. "By starting with short test intervals and expanding only as performance improves, we’re prioritizing both safety and reliability."

"ECC staff are committed to keeping the public informed, answering questions, and helping our community understand how this tool supports our emergency response team," said Commissioner Julie Braastad, who serves as the lead commissioner on Public Safety. "Human call takers remain central to the ECC’s mission and AI is simply an additional resource to help us serve residents more efficiently. The ECC answers all non-emergency and 9-1-1 calls and over two-thirds of those calls come in on non-emergency lines. Their goal is to utilize Erica or Eric to keep their staff more available for those 9-1-1 calls."