BROWN COUNTY (NBC 26) — Artificial intelligence is saving dispatchers valuable time when non-emergency phone calls come in to the Brown County Public Safety Communications Center.
The center receives about 160,000 calls to its non-emergency phone number every year.
When those calls come in, dispatchers have traditionally picked up the phone to help callers with records requests, parking permits and other non-critical matters.
That takes their attention away from emergency 911 calls.
To help dispatchers focus on the most urgent situations, the department developed an automated virtual assistant to answer non-critical calls.
They call it A.V.A., short for Automated Virtual Assistant.
Call centers in Lacrosse, Waukesha and Dane Counties are already using the technology.
With their assistance, Brown County dispatch spent six months developing the tool for local use.
"We wanted to make sure that if we were going to implement this for our team and our citizens that it was something that would be impactful," said Jessica Skalecki, the operations manager at Brown County Public Safety Communications.
A.V.A. went live this month, and Skalecki says the response has been positive.
"We've actually had an overwhelmingly good response from the citizens in utilizing her," noted Skalecki.
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The advanced AI follows the standard operating guidelines of certified dispatchers, gathering information from callers and reacting to their replies. The system is also designed to recognize when a caller needs a human.
"She actually can detect frustrations," explained Skalecki, "so if there's any apprehension, if they're asking to speak with a dispatcher, if there's an influx or if she's detecting that there's something in the background that's just not right, she's transferring it in to us right away."
The dispatch team monitors all A.V.A. calls in real time, so when callers need a transfer, dispatchers get a transcript of what A.V.A.;s gathered about their situation.
Using Ava for non-emergency response allows human dispatchers to focus on 911 calls.
"It will not be replacing team members," director Chancy Huntzinger wanted to clarify. "This is to assist our team."
A.V.A. is currently handling about 60% of the center's non-emergency calls on average.
"That's a wonderful number for just starting," Skalecki said.
While the program has seen success, Brown County dispatch says there are no plans to ever expand the artificial intelligence to answer 911 emergency phone calls. Those calls will remain answered as they always have been, by a human dispatcher.
