911 Call Centers Are Understaffed. This Startup Just Raised $14 Million to Use AI to Reduce Wait Times. The Y Combinator-backed startup, called Aurelian, is building an AI voice assistant to help fill in the gaps for 911 call centers.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Aurelian, an AI startup that handles non-emergency calls for 911 call centers, just raised $14 million on Wednesday for its Series A funding round.
- Aurelian launched its AI assistant in May 2024 and has since deployed it to about a dozen locations.
- The AI assistant handles thousands of live 911 calls a day.
A new AI startup pivoted from automating appointment bookings for hair salons to building an AI voice assistant that handles non-emergency calls for 911 call centers — and it just raised a $14 million Series A for its new focus on Wednesday.
Max Keenan, the founder of Y Combinator-backed startup Aurelian, decided to pivot the company in response to a call from one of his clients, reports TechCrunch. The client, a hair salon owner, had a problem with a school's carpool lane blocking the salon's parking lot. When she called the city's non-emergency line about the matter, she was put on hold for 45 minutes, an exceedingly long wait time.
The salon owner told Keenan about the experience, which prompted him to investigate how non-emergency call centers operate. He discovered that they are often staffed by the same personnel who answer 911 emergency calls and tend to be understaffed. Emergency dispatch is among the top 10 industries with the highest turnover rates.
Keenan decided to change Aurelian's focus from automating hair salon bookings to handling non-emergency 911 calls, including those for noise complaints, stolen wallets, and parking violations. The startup's AI technology knows when to detect life-threatening emergencies and send those calls directly to human dispatchers.
Aurelian launched its AI assistant in May 2024 and has since deployed it at 911 call centers in Snohomish County, Washington, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, in addition to about a dozen other locations.
According to Aurelian's website, the AI assistant has saved each 911 dispatcher three hours every day on non-emergency calls, and automated 74% of calls without dispatcher intervention.
"We think that these telecommunicators should have a chance of taking a break," Keenan told TechCrunch.
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Aurelian's AI is handling thousands of live calls a day, putting it a step ahead of the competition, including startups like Hyper and Prepared, which have not handled live calls yet, per TechCrunch.
AI technology is also becoming a part of life in customer service calls. For example, CVS Health, which operates over 9,000 locations and 1,000 walk-in clinics across the U.S., introduced a new AI-based call system last year. Tilak Mandadi, CVS Health's chief digital, data, analytics, and technology officer, told The Wall Street Journal in June 2024 that if someone calls the pharmacy, AI will respond if it can answer the question. If the AI can't handle the inquiry, customers will be directed to a human agent.
Other companies across industries have taken a similar approach. Fintech startup Klarna, famous for its "buy now, pay later" payment options, said in February 2024 that its customer service AI chatbot was doing the equivalent work of 700 human full-time employees. Klarna also used an AI clone of its CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, to summarize earnings in May, highlighting the reach of AI technology across business operations.
