City to purchase AI-powered nonemergency call automation system after staff pilot visits; three-year subscription approved

The commission approved a three-year subscription contract with Needle Inc., doing business as Aurelian, to provide an automated nonemergency call automation and virtual assistant solution for the city’s public-safety dispatch center. The contract is structured as an annual subscription of $85,000 with a three-year not-to-exceed total of $255,000.

City staff presented the procurement after evaluating three proposals and an out-of-state site visit to a municipal user of the software. Staff said the system can process an estimated 70% of the city’s nonemergency calls (113,656 nonemergency calls were recorded in FY25), offer multilingual support (staff cited support for more than 30 languages), integrate with the city’s CAD system, provide text and web-channel access, and detect emergency cues (yelling, background noise or nonsensical answers) and transfer callers immediately to a 911 dispatcher when needed. Staff emphasized vendor assurances for customization, ongoing support and an operator monitoring platform that provides live transcriptions of automated interactions.

Commissioners asked how the tool would handle sensitive or covert calls (for example, a caller who is covertly seeking help) and whether callers speaking uncommon dialects would be routed to humans; staff and the vendor representatives said the system is designed to detect indicators of emergency or nonsensical responses and will route to a human call taker or interpreter when it cannot resolve the caller’s need. Staff said 9-1-1 calls will still be handled by dispatchers in the same way and that the automated system will take over the city’s nonemergency line.

The municipal order passed on roll call. Staff described the procurement as a way to free dispatcher time for emergency calls and reduce hold times for citizens while offering multilingual and text-accessible options.