Buena Park police to test AI assistant 'Ava' on non-emergency line

The next time you call Buena Park police about a noise complaint or a parked car, an AI may pick up. The City Council gave staff direction to enter a $25,000, one-year pilot with Aurelian, a company that builds call-automation tools for police dispatchers, Voice of OC reported.

The deal puts two AI assistants into the Buena Park Police Department's call systems. The one callers will hear is nicknamed "Ava," and it will answer the department's non-emergency line.

How Ava would work

Police Capt. Nghia Nguyen told the council the system could cut the number of non-emergency calls handled by dispatchers by as much as 70%, according to Voice of OC.

Ava can handle more than 100 calls at once, answers with zero hold time and supports 50 languages, Voice of OC reported. It can send callers informational links, transfer them to other departments and place automated calls to residents when a major event or situation is happening in the city.

Once a caller confirms the information, Ava submits it to live dispatchers, who can review it and send officers. The AI also writes a summary while the call is happening, and calls are recorded and stored so dispatchers can review them if needed.

What happens in a real emergency

If a call to the non-emergency line turns out to be an emergency, it goes straight to a live dispatcher, Nguyen said. He estimated 7% to 10% of non-emergency calls could actually be emergencies. If the system has trouble understanding a caller, it defaults to transferring them to a person.

The second assistant, called "Cora," does not take 911 calls. It works in the background during emergency calls, transcribing and summarizing them, validating the caller's location and flagging questions or details a call-taker may have missed, Voice of OC reported.

Council concerns

Mayor Connor Traut said residents may worry that AI reduces community connection and the quality of customer service. Council members stressed that humans need to remain in full control of the technology, especially in emergencies.

Council members Susan Sonne and Carlos Franco asked whether caller data would be shared with Aurelian or anyone else. Nguyen said Aurelian keeps no data, the information is used only by Buena Park police, and the contract bars sharing it with third parties. Sonne also questioned how the system would handle callers who are hard to understand, saying the demo examples "didn't feel like real life."

Dispatch Supervisor Maria Esquetini backed the pilot, pointing to staffing shortages, while acknowledging the worry: "It sounds scary because it's AI." Nguyen said the goals are to eliminate hold times, get people help faster and reduce dispatcher burnout and turnover.

Not the first in California

El Cajon police began using Aurelian's AI, which the department calls AVA, for non-emergency calls in early July and said they were the first California city to use the company, NBC 7 San Diego reported. El Cajon's one-year contract costs $74,000, 911 calls there still go straight to human dispatchers, and the department says a person reviews every call the AI takes.