APCO Hosts First AI Summit

More than 250 attendees gathered in Orlando, Florida, this week at the APCO AI Summit to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming emergency communications. AI is a hot-button topic in public safety, and the interest in this event proved there is still so much to explore around this new technology. Sessions ranged in topic from defining what AI is to how it can be used in training to the ethical and legal considerations for using AI in emergency communications centers (ECCs).

Day 1

The first day of the summit opened with a keynote presentation from Kevin McNulty, president and CEO of NetWeave Social Networking. Kevin's session centered on how the success of AI adoption hinges less on technology and more on organizational mindset. He discussed the different types of AI technology available and how the culture of your ECC impacts the success of using AI tools. For agencies that haven't begun implementing AI yet, "the amount of AI tools out there is overwhelming, and there's more coming all of the time. Trying to do everything all at once is going to be hard. Start small."

Other sessions throughout the day included panel discussions on how agencies are implementing AI into their training programs, how AI alleviates certain challenges in ECCs and the opportunities that AI presents to assist ECCs with cybersecurity. Many of the discussions centered on whether we are getting past people's fear that AI is going to take their jobs. One panelist explained, "Our folks are 100% on board. Very quickly, they realized how this is making their lives easier. However, we don't want them to be 100% reliant on it. We implement certain days where we take it away and make them do things manually so they aren't losing those skills."

The day closed with a presentation on how APCO has begun to support the integration of AI into ECCs. Mel Maier, CEO and executive director for APCO International, announced a new partnership with the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies (iCERT) to launch a new program promoting the responsible implementation of AI in emergency response and public safety communications systems. iCERT Interim Executive Director Don Brittingham joined Mel to discuss the collaboration and what the program will accomplish.

Day 2

Day two of the APCO AI Summit began with a session delving into the ethical implications of using AI in emergency scenarios, including privacy concerns, bias and decision-making transparency. A panel of telecommunicators discussed the human element of AI, "human oversight is essential. This is a tool, but not the ultimate tool; just like humans, it's imperfect."

APCO reviewed why standards are so important to ECCs and announced a new operational standard titled Best Practices for Artificial Intelligence Integration into the ECC. The standard will provide best practices for ECCs to implement AI, and it will discuss various integrations and outline both operational and training aspects, including considerations for the following topics: alleviating ECC challenges, training, cybersecurity, ethical and legal considerations, mental health support for public safety telecommunicators and implementation considerations. APCO is looking for working group members to assist with the development of this standard.

Jeremy Hill, public safety advisor, NTIA, presented in the afternoon on a recently released report, "AI-Driven Transformation in 9-1-1 Operations." NTIA conducted a national analysis to understand how ECCs are engaging with AI and other emerging technologies. Jeremy reviewed the results of the report during his presentation, highlighting early successes, common challenges and areas of opportunity directly from 9-1-1 leaders.

Day two of the event featured two additional panel discussions full of actionable insights from ECCs discussing their lessons learned with AI as well as a panel of the technology vendors building these AI products discussing what they see coming in the future for AI.

Several themes emerged from the discussions throughout the summit - ECC leaders must take steps to assure their telecommunicators that AI won't take their jobs, and AI isn't infallible. "AI thinks with you - it's the coworker working alongside our telecommunicators."

Thank you to everyone who attended our first AI Summit, and thank you to our sponsors and supporters for making this event possible.