AI agent coming to Salt Lake County non-emergency line

SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center is turning to artificial intelligence to help manage the volume of calls it receives each year.

The center, which answers calls and dispatches police, fire and emergency medical services for agencies throughout Salt Lake County, receives about 850,000 calls annually. About 600,000 are non-emergency calls.

Officials say about 70% of those non-emergency calls involve routine questions, such as office hours or how to file a police report.

The new AI agent is designed to answer those questions and send callers information by text or email. It also supports 30 languages.

Ivan Whitaker, executive director of the center, said the AI will not answer emergency calls. "This will only be on the non-emergency lines. It will not (affect) emergency lines so if someone dials 911 they will experience a live-trained dispatcher to take those calls."

The agent can send callers information in their preferred language, Whitaker said. "We can send text messages and we can send information via email; the information could come across in their native language, so if they speak Spanish, the bot will recognize that they speak Spanish and send the information over in the native languages."

If a caller describes an emergency, the AI is designed to connect them to a live emergency dispatcher. "If there's any type of emergency what so ever the ai is set very sensitive to where it's going to get you over to a live emergency dispatcher right away."

The AI agent is scheduled to launch Dec. 4. Residents can also test the agent and help choose its voice on Nov. 19 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the center's office, 5360 S. Ridge Village Drive, in West Valley City.