From the Emergency Services edition of October 7, 2026
CBS Chicago: Lake County 911 (Indiana) says Aurelian's AVA answered 35,000+ non-emergency calls in six months, with staff checking its work
Lake County 911 (Indiana) / Aurelian · County consolidated 911 center for police, fire and EMS · United States (Indiana)
- Publisher
- CBS News Chicago
- Original publication
- 2026-10-06
- Source retrieved
- 2026-10-08
What happened
CBS News Chicago reported (updated Oct 6, 2026) that Lake County 911 in Indiana, which takes calls for 44 police, fire and EMS agencies, uses Aurelian's AVA to answer non-emergency calls amid a dispatcher staffing shortage. The center's director said AVA answered more than 35,000 non-emergency calls in six months, is not taking dispatch jobs, and that a staff member still checks its work. Aurelian's CEO said 70% of an average center's calls are not 911 calls, that the company serves more than 60 agencies, and that AVA handled up to 300 simultaneous calls in training.
Why it matters
A large consolidated center dispatching fire and EMS as well as police has put AI on its non-emergency line explicitly as a staffing response. It adds a new jurisdiction and a volume figure to a product already spreading across Midwest dispatch centers, and it names human review of the AI's work as a standing cost.
Evidence and measured results
Local reporting with on-record statements from the center director and the vendor's CEO; no accuracy, transfer, misroute or caller-satisfaction data. The archive already holds AVA deployments in Waukesha, Dane, Ozaukee, Akron, Grays Harbor and La Vergne; this is a new agency and source, not a repeat.
Limitations and uncertainty
Vendor statistics (70% non-911 share, 60+ agencies, 300 simultaneous calls) are the CEO's claims. The article's sentence that AVA 'has taken more than 444,000 calls so far this year' appears to describe the center's total volume and conflicts with the 35,000 figure; we rely on the 35,000-in-six-months figure attributed to the director.
Put this evidence to work
Lighthouse Advisory interpretation, grounded in this source. Enriched 2026-10-07; this does not change the original publication date. Each role follows the same checklist so takeaways compare across sources.
Sales
Role takeaway
- Customer problem
- 911 centers cannot hire enough call takers, and routine calls compete with emergencies.
- Stakeholders
- 911 executive director
- Member police, fire and EMS agencies
- County council
- Residents
- Discovery questions
- What share of your calls are non-emergency?
- Who reviews AI-handled calls and how often?
- What misroute and transfer data do you keep?
- Value hypothesis
- AI intake may absorb routine calls during staffing gaps if review shows low error rates.
- Potential engagement
- Performance and review-cost measurement for an AI non-emergency line.
- Unsupported claims
- Faster 911 answer times
- Accuracy of AVA routing
- Staff hours saved
Pre-sales engineering
Role takeaway
- Fit
- Vendor AI agent for non-emergency call intake at a consolidated PSAP.
- Architecture and integration
- Non-emergency trunk to vendor agent; transfer to human call takers; human review of AI-handled calls.
- Prerequisites
- Call-type catalog
- Transfer rules
- Call logs with outcomes
- Constraints
- No published accuracy data
- Vendor-claimed concurrency
- Volume figures inconsistent in report
- Security
- Confirm vendor retention and access controls for recordings and caller details.
- Proof of value
- Misroute rate on a reviewed sample
- Time to human after request
- Emergency-on-wrong-line transfer tests
Delivery
Role takeaway
- Work
- Define the review sample, track errors and transfers, report monthly before expanding scope.
- Dependencies
- Aurelian
- Telephony
- Member agencies
- Ownership
- Lake County 911 executive director.
- Skills and adoption
- Reviewers learn to grade AI calls consistently and send corrections to the vendor.
- Governance checkpoints
- Monthly metrics review
- Pre-expansion review
- Acceptance criteria
- Reviewed-sample error rate reported monthly
- All emergency tests transferred
- Risks
- Unmeasured misroutes
- Review work absorbs freed time
- Caller frustration
Implementation considerations
Lighthouse Advisory interpretation across the operating dimensions a public-sector buyer must settle before this evidence becomes a design. Each note answers the question under its heading for this specific source.
Architecture and integration
What must connect, and where does the AI sit in the workflow?
Vendor voice agent on the non-emergency trunk in front of human call takers; concurrency is the claimed advantage, with up to 300 simultaneous calls in vendor training, not in live use.
Governance
Who approves, reviews and stays accountable for outcomes?
Human checking of AI output is described but its scope, sampling rate and error handling are not; no published performance reporting.
Security and privacy
What data, permissions and controls need testing?
Not addressed in the report; recordings and caller data handling by the vendor should be confirmed.
Accessibility and workforce
Who is affected, and what skills or accommodations follow?
Framed as filling a hiring gap rather than replacing staff, but it creates a review task that someone must staff.
Procurement
What should contracts, pricing and exit terms secure?
Same vendor across many neighboring centers allows peer benchmarking if agencies share comparable metrics.
Operating model
Which teams own the service once it runs?
AI handles routine non-emergency calls; humans take emergencies and check the AI's work.
Publication history
- 2026-10-07Emergency Services · Issue 324 resources
Stable resource ID: cbs-chicago-lake-county-in-911-ava-nonemergency-20261006