VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – Inside Volusia County’s 911 communications center, a new voice is answering the phones and it’s not human.
“Ava,” short for Automated Virtual Agent, is an artificial intelligence system designed to handle non-emergency calls so dispatchers can focus on true emergencies.
Ava is a new kind of dispatcher. The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office began using Ava on Aug. 1. Since then, the system has answered thousands of non-emergency calls that once came through to live dispatchers.
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On average, the county’s 911 center receives about 1,000 non-emergency calls and another 800 to 1,000 emergency calls every day. Since the start of August, the center has taken more than 72,500 total calls.
Sheriff Mike Chitwood says staffing shortages made it difficult to keep the communications center fully staffed.
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“You can’t fill all the spots in here,” he said. “I can’t hire people, and there’s very little retention… so we took a look at this AI company and gave it a try.”
Chitwood says Ava was introduced as a tool to improve efficiency, not replace anyone’s job.
“This isn’t here to take your job. It’s here to improve your quality of life,” he said.
Ava can route calls about barking dogs directly to animal control or send reports of water main breaks to public works. These are every day issues that don’t require emergency response but can tie up phone lines.
The system can also recognize when a situation turns serious. Chitwood shared one example of when a caller initially reported no injuries after a crash but when the passenger mentioned chest pains, Ava automatically transferred the call to a 911 dispatcher without any human intervention.
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Since Ava went live in August, the sheriff’s office reports faster response times and higher morale among dispatchers. The automated system takes many of the routine reports that once caused constant background noise and “blast-outs” of ringing phones across the call floor.
For longtime dispatcher Ron Huth, who has been answering calls for 32 years, Ava has made an immediate difference.
“Ava has really cut down on our background noise because we don’t get as many what they call ‘blast-outs,’” Huth said. “The phone’s not ringing as much. We can look at the call she put in, make sure it makes sense, and send it to our dispatchers.”
With fewer interruptions, Huth says dispatchers can focus more closely on high-priority calls. The kind that save lives.
“You can go from a life save to a noise complaint, then right back to a house fire or a child not breathing. It’s from speed 1 to speed 90 all day long,” he said.
Huth still remembers one call that has stayed with him. He says it’s a call that explains why he’s devoted his career to dispatch work.
“A little girl up in Pierson choked on a piece of bread,” Huth recalled. “I walked her dad through the Heimlich over the phone. She was home from the hospital three hours later.”
“I love to help people,” he added. “There’s nothing like saving somebody’s life over the phone.”
While Ava may not replace the experience and intuition of a trained dispatcher, Volusia County’s 911 center has found the system can make their jobs easier and their response times faster.
As Chitwood put it, Ava is not here to take over – she’s here to help dispatchers do what they do best: save lives.