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Detroit startup pitches voice agent 'Emily' after 12‑week pilot; council asks for transparency

Detroit City Council · January 6, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Believe in AI presented ‘Emily,’ a conversational voice agent piloted in two districts; company said Emily handled more than 1,750 calls and resolved roughly three out of four requests, while councilmembers raised concerns about city branding and transparency.

A local startup urged the Detroit City Council to consider expanding a pilot of an automated voice agent called Emily that the company says answered district-level calls and reduced voicemail backlogs.

Mario Kelly, cofounder of Believe in AI, described Emily as a call-center agent that can hold natural conversations and capture calls for transcript review. He said the pilot ran in Districts 3 and 4 and that the company would like to expand the tool to other districts and…

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