New Orleans AI agent handles "narrow category" of 911 calls
AI agents will assess calls and transfer urgent cases to humans.
Image by Getty/Robert Alexander
- New Orleans will use Carbyne AI agents to help triage 911 calls and reduce pressure on human operators.
- The AI will update callers about already reported incidents, while new emergencies are sent to human 911 operators.
- The city gets about 1,000 emergency calls daily, making faster sorting important for urgent cases.
- AI triage may cut wait times, but critics warn it could miss distress, context, or bias-related risks.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
New Orleans’ emergency services will start using AI agents to answer 911 calls, however, the OPCD says initial reports are inaccurate.
The Orleans Parish Communication District (OPCD) is making an AI agent partially responsible for answering emergency calls to take the pressure off human operators.
The OPCD is using an AI-powered Emergency Call Triage from the cloud-native emergency services company Carbyne.
The AI prioritizes “emergency calls, delivers information to callers in the queue, and provides reassurance to callers that help is on the way,” according to Carbyne.
AI operators aim to reassure people while they wait to be spoken to by a real person who has prioritized an urgent call.
The AI agent won’t necessarily handle an emergency, but it may handle calls related to a single incident.
If the caller confirms they are calling about a previously reported incident, then the platform provides updates.
If the caller dials 911 to report a new issue, then they’re transferred to a human operator, according to the Shreveport Times.
New Orleans receives roughly 1,000 emergency calls every day, and urgent situations could get lost amongst the calls if there’s nothing filtering them.
Following the report, the OPCD told Cybernews that the initial report by the Shreveport Times contained inaccuracies, as the agency has use this AI triage system for the past two years for "a very narrow category of 911 calls involving auto crashes."
The AI triage technology kicks in when all call takers are busy and "the incoming calls originate from within a 200-meter radius of an already reported vehicle crash," according to the OPCD's response.
New Orleans response department already uses AI
Louisiana's largest city is already using AI to handle non-emergency 311 calls.
The agent was trained on 3 years of 311 calls and has been designed to sound polite and professional, according to GovTech.
Carbyne also services New Orleans’ 311 line and follows a similar pattern. If someone is calling about a particular incident, say, a car crash, then the AI agent will ask if they’re calling about that specific issue.
If so, they’re assured the issue is being handled, and if not, they’re transferred to a human operator.
AI might struggle to interpret distress
AI could help alleviate some of the pressure on first responders, as AI triage can “reduce call wait times, improve resource allocation, and potentially save lives by ensuring that critical calls receive priority, according to CISA.
However, integrating AI into an environment with no room for error could prove risky.
One study suggests that ethical challenges, such as the projection of bias and discrimination, could, in theory, have dire consequences for people from underrepresented or marginalized communities.
Furthermore, AI could fail to interpret complex situations that require contextual awareness and handle new situations without the correct training data, according to the European Commission.
