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

Gabe Wilson, the developer of Emily, presented pilot metrics, saying that over a 12-week period Emily handled more than 1,750 inbound calls with no system downtime and resolved roughly three out of four callers’ needs without requiring a district manager follow-up. "So what that means is that roughly 3 out of 4 callers received help without the need for a district manager to follow-up," Wilson said.

Some councilmembers expressed concern about the program's rollout and materials. One member said she found the program in the news and worried that printed materials using the city logo could create the impression this was a city initiative without council review. Mario Kelly said the materials presented to the council that day were his organization's handouts, not a city-produced document.

Other councilmembers asked for more detail on how Emily would interact with district managers’ cell phones and how residents’ personal data and phone calls are routed and stored. Councilmembers asked the company to provide more technical and operational detail before any wider deployment.

The company framed the system as augmenting city services rather than replacing city jobs; no procurement, contract or vote was recorded in this meeting. Councilmembers requested follow-up information from the company and administration on program mechanics, privacy safeguards and whether the administration intends to expand the tool.