Why AI Needs Public Safety Grade Location Intelligence
AI is becoming one of the most discussed topics in public safety.
There is growing interest in how AI could help PSAPs, responders, analysts, and command staff manage information more efficiently. AI can help users quickly
understand emergency call details and context, identify response needs, surface relevant supplemental data useful during a call, support decision-making, and reduce the burden of searching for information across multiple systems during an unfolding emergency incident.
Those possibilities are important.
But AI does not create operational value on its own.
It depends on the quality of the data behind it.
In public safety, that distinction matters more than almost anywhere else. The information AI uses must be accurate, trusted, current, and operationally relevant. If the underlying data is incomplete, outdated, disconnected, or unclear, AI can produce information that is less useful, less reliable, or harder for teams to act on.
That is especially true for location.
Every emergency response begins with place. Where is the caller? What building is involved? Which entrance should responders use? What floor is the incident on? What
hazards, assets, access points, or nearby features could affect the response? Which agencies need to see the same location information?
AI can help organize and interpret location details described by a 9-1-1 caller, but it needs authoritative location intelligence to do that responsibly.
A system cannot confidently support a response if it is drawing from static, out-of-date floor plans, conflicting maps, unmaintained records, or siloed data sources. It cannot provide meaningful insight if it does not understand the operational environment responders are entering. It cannot strengthen situational awareness if the location foundation is weak.
This is why public safety-grade data matters.
Public safety-grade location data is not simply data that exists. It is location data built for specific mission-critical operational use. It is accurate enough to support decisions. It is maintained as conditions change. It is accessible to the right people and systems at the right time. It is structured in ways that can move across workflows, agencies, and technologies. It is trusted when the pressure is high.
As AI becomes more embedded in public safety, agencies will need to evaluate more than the AI tool itself. They will need to evaluate the readiness of the data feeding it.
Is the data accurate?
Is it current?
Is it authoritative?
Is it connected across systems?
Can it support real response workflows?
AI may help public safety teams move faster, but speed without trusted location context is not enough. The future of AI in emergency response will depend on whether agencies can pair advanced tools with reliable operational data.
In public safety, location intelligence is only useful when it can be accessed when needed and trusted.
Technical Signals
Esri updated its rapid-mapping workflow for tracking smoke from Canada's wildfires in ArcGIS Online as the 2026 season passes 3,500 reported fires and roughly 5.9 million acres burned. The workflow builds on the National Weather Service Smoke Forecast layer in ArcGIS Living Atlas, which displays projected surface smoke for the next 48 hours in one-hour increments and refreshes every 24 hours with a time slider for stepping through the forecast. Supplemental layers add current wildfire perimeters, satellite thermal hotspots, and live air quality readings, and the companion Air Quality Aware app reports current air quality conditions across the United States and Canada.
Esri released a scenario comparison report for ArcGIS Urban that exports planning scenarios into a Microsoft Excel workbook for side-by-side evaluation. The export includes metrics, space-use areas, and zoning and land-use areas for each scenario, organized in pivot tables and charts that can be filtered by scenario or metric and restyled to match an organization's reporting templates. When scenarios change, replacing the underlying data sheets and refreshing the workbook updates every table and chart while preserving custom formatting.
Richmond, Virginia has spent more than $52,000 on a customized Amazon Connect artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that has answered the city's non-emergency line since April 2025. The assistant fully handles 10% to 15% of non-emergency calls and routes another 5% to city agencies, drawing on city-approved information and transferring to a live dispatcher when it cannot answer a question confidently. Dispatchers answered about 93% of emergency calls within 15 seconds in January, up from about 85% a year earlier. Callers are not informed that they are speaking with AI. NENA recommends disclosing that to callers, and independent testing found inconsistent call transfers and language handling.
Everywhere Communications announced an integration with drone maker Skydio that dispatches an autonomous drone to an incident location when a lone worker triggers an SOS. The Everywhere platform receives the SOS event over satellite and wireless networks, passes the precise location to Skydio for drone dispatch, and simultaneously notifies supervisors, dispatch centers, field personnel, and emergency services. The capability is being validated through a live lone worker safety program, and the framework is designed to extend to triggers such as geofence violations and missed check-ins.
GIS Policy & Standards Watch
Delaware Governor Matt Meyer signed House Bill 468, establishing a sustainable funding source for the state's transition from legacy Enhanced 9-1-1 to a statewide NG9-1-1 system. The law raises the monthly 911 surcharge from 60 cents to 90 cents beginning October 1, 2026, the first adjustment since 2001, and directs revenue exclusively to eligible NG9-1-1 expenses including network infrastructure, call handling equipment, cybersecurity, GIS data management, and training. The bill passed unanimously and is projected to generate roughly $3.375 million in fiscal year 2027 and about $4.5 million annually thereafter. Delaware's eight PSAPs answer more than 700,000 voice 911 calls and process at least 20,000 text-to-911 messages each year.
Australia conducts a national test of AusAlert, its new cell broadcast emergency warning system, on July 27, 2026, sending a test alert to all compatible mobile devices in the country. Run by the National Emergency Management Agency, AusAlert replaces the SMS-based Emergency Alert system and delivers geographically targeted warnings to within 160 meters of a defined area, broadcasting through available towers without dependence on a caller's carrier and without exposure to network congestion. Community tests ran in June, and the system enters full operation on October 1, 2026, ahead of the 2026-27 high risk weather season.
SOS Technologies and Omnilert announced a technology partnership connecting AI gun detection with coordinated emergency response. When Omnilert's AI Gun Detection identifies and verifies a visible firearm through existing security cameras, incident details flow automatically into SOS LIVE 2.0, SOS Technologies' direct-to-responder communication and location intelligence platform, giving responders real-time incident details, location context, and situational awareness tools during critical events. The SOS platform holds GovRAMP authorization, supporting public safety, education, and healthcare customers with security compliance requirements.
Insight of the Week
Grand County’s response to the Hartman Hill Fire shows how pre-defined evacuation zones turn GIS data into an emergency tool. Officials issued a mandatory evacuation for Zone K16, targeted alerts to people registered in the affected area and linked residents to a live ArcGIS evacuation map. When aircraft mapping revised the fire’s estimated size from 101 acres to 26 acres, the county quickly returned the zone to pre-evacuation status. The system gave responders a shared geographic reference for alerts, field operations and public instructions.
Resources & Events
Report Spotlight: 2026 State of the 9-1-1 Industry Report (Intrado)
Intrado's 2026 State of the 9-1-1 Industry Report examines where agencies are investing and what is slowing modernization across NG9-1-1 deployment, artificial intelligence adoption, and emerging technology. The report finds that 97% of 9-1-1 professionals do not expect to remain in the profession through retirement, that 90% of emergency communications centers experienced a system outage in the past year, and that 78% of Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) are connected to an ESInet while no agency has completed full NG9-1-1 Phase 2 implementation. It estimates between $5.8 billion and $9.27 billion in remaining funding to complete nationwide NG9-1-1 modernization and identifies Phase 2 as the industry's largest deployment challenge.
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