Westcomm Regional Dispatch in Western Massachusetts is preparing to use artificial intelligence to answer some nonemergency calls, a move officials say is intended to reduce pressure on human dispatchers and help them focus on urgent 911 incidents.
The regional center, which provides emergency dispatch services for Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, Chicopee, Monson, Ware and the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, is testing an AI answering system for business-line calls such as permit questions, police-detail requests, animal control inquiries and other administrative matters.
No launch date has been finalized, but officials hope to introduce the system within the next two months. The rollout is being phased as Westcomm adjusts the circumstances under which the AI will transfer callers to a dispatcher.
Anthony Massoia, deputy director of Westcomm, said officials are taking a cautious approach because the first implementation will set expectations for the use of the technology in Western Massachusetts and across the state.
Westcomm has handled nearly 30,300 calls to 911 this year as of July 1, while nonemergency calls to its business line totaled about 79,500 during the same period. Officials say the disparity illustrates why administrative call handling has become a growing operational concern.
The AI answering system will not replace dispatchers, according to Westcomm Executive Director Penny Ryan. Instead, the center expects the technology to help triage business-line calls and route potential emergencies back to trained personnel.
Ryan said the technology is expected to reduce the number of routine business-line calls handled by dispatchers, easing workload pressures while preserving human oversight for emergency communications.
Westcomm has already been using several AI-enabled tools in its dispatch operations, including call transcription, keyword flagging, multilingual communication support, radio-traffic transcription and quality-assurance monitoring. Ryan said the tools have improved situational awareness across the dispatch room while allowing call takers to stay focused on callers.
The center’s AI tools cost about $100,000, with funding reimbursed through a state 911 grant. The answering system is being developed with Prepared, an Axon company. Massoia said Westcomm and the communities it serves own the data collected by the system.
The initiative comes as public safety answering points across the United States continue moving toward Next Generation 911 systems, which use internet-based infrastructure and can support newer technologies. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has said AI is increasingly viewed as part of modernization efforts for NG911.
However, officials and civil liberties advocates have raised questions about accuracy, oversight and legal disclosure. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has said prosecutors should disclose when AI-generated 911 transcripts or summaries are used in criminal cases.
Katy Naples-Mitchell, justice policy counsel at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said 911 calls can serve as evidence in criminal cases and warned that AI-generated transcripts or summaries could introduce errors that affect defendants.
Nearby Springfield, Massachusetts, has not adopted AI in its dispatch operations, though officials are monitoring the technology. Rebecca Ocasio, Springfield’s 911 deputy director, said the city would need confidence that any AI answering service could quickly reroute a caller if a business-line inquiry became an emergency.
Ocasio said Springfield would need assurance that any AI service could reliably identify when a caller should be transferred to an emergency call handler so that urgent situations are not missed.
Westcomm officials say medical calls and situations that appear to be emergencies will continue to be handled by humans. In testing, the system has been trained to recognize escalation and transfer a call to a dispatcher. Massoia said supervisors will be able to monitor AI interactions in real time, and the system will include a “scram button” to divert a call to a human dispatcher.
Aliyah Hernandez, a Westcomm shift supervisor, said AI tools can help dispatchers catch and confirm important details, such as street numbers, but emphasized that human call takers remain central to the work.
Hernandez said AI may support dispatchers by helping confirm key details, but the role of human call takers remains central because they continue to answer calls and communicate directly with the public.
