Filling the PSAP Gap with AI-Enabled ViizViital

240 million—that’s approximately how many calls are made to 9-1-1 in the U.S. each year*, and the total keeps growing.

Given that there are only 5,748 primary and secondary Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) nationwide, that’s a lot of calls for the human operators to handle. Fortunately, many calls to PSAPs’ non-emergency 10-digit phone numbers can be handled by artificial intelligence-driven telephone answering systems. Such AI-driven systems can interact verbally with callers, guiding them through a subject menu to filter and direct calls appropriately. For instance, in cases like stray animal reports or non-violent road rage incidents, the AI-driven answering system can gather information from the caller and email it to the appropriate personnel for later action. In urgent situations, such as crimes in progress or medical emergencies, the AI system can immediately transfer the caller to a human operator for assistance. 

The above may sound like science fiction, but thanks to Viiz Communications of San Antonio, TX, it’s science fact. That’s because Viiz — which specializes in telecommunications management solutions, has developed an advanced conversational AI answering system called ViizViital to fill this role. Essentially, ViizViital acts as a PSAP’s virtual assistant. It is designed to fill the ‘PSAP Gap’ in available human operators. By triaging incoming non-emergency calls based on urgency, ViizViital reduces the number of calls that human operators have to deal with directly. At the same time, this intelligent use of AI provides prompt telephone service to the public, rather than forcing them to sit on the line waiting for a person to pick up on their call.

Elise Bellick, Vice President of Sales at Viiz, explains the company’s evolution:
“Viiz started out 20 years ago in the voice services telecom business and then grew our call center business to relay confirmed emergency calls from IoT devices to 9-1-1, along with other declared emergencies,” she said. “It was our years of experience in this area that led to the creation of ViizViital. It is a conversational AI front-end answering system that’s tied only to non-emergency calls. More importantly, ViizViital is an interactive system that can receive verbal questions from callers and answer them verbally, using different data sources we aggregate from the jurisdictions we serve, plus our own internal directory assistance database.”

In those cases where the caller’s request involves an actual real-time emergency or a question the AI system cannot answer, ViizViital seamlessly redirects the call to a human operator. To further reduce the burden on PSAPs, redirected calls can be routed to Viiz’s own emergency response specialists or directly to a PSAP telecommunicator, depending on the severity of the situation.

Essentially, ViizViital acts as a PSAP’s virtual assistant. It is designed to fill the ‘PSAP Gap’ in available human operators. By triaging incoming non-emergency calls based on urgency, ViizViital reduces the number of calls that human operators have to deal with directly.

Again, the point of this effort is to reduce the workload on America’s PSAPs, allowing them to focus on actual emergencies while reducing the time it takes to answer calls. “America’s 9-1-1 centers are experiencing a staffing crisis, with many call centers severely understaffed,” said Bellick. “ViizViital helps alleviate the burden of non-emergency calls, enabling telecommunicators to concentrate on true emergencies.”

Beyond being able to filter calls interactively, ViizViital offers a more human-like conversational experience. In test calls, it demonstrated the ability to interact naturally with callers and even handle inquiries via SMS. Bellick describes this as an example of “advanced conversational AI.”

“It’s not like a traditional question/answer IVR [interactive voice response] system,” she said. “It’s much more conversational, and it’s multilingual, allowing us to assist callers in up to 40 languages as needed.”

To deliver a secure, scalable, and cost-effective AI-driven platform, Viiz built ViizViital on Google’s Contact Center as a Service AI cloud-based platform. “We’ve developed it specifically for the public safety space,” said Bellick. “Through this partnership, we’ve ensured that ViizViital is secure, encrypted, and fully customizable—because no two 9-1-1 centers are exactly alike. Each PSAP operates independently, and no data is shared between them.”

“ViizViital is a new solution, and we’re looking for PSAPs to partner with us on a trial basis,” Bellick said. “We really try to take the load off the PSAP when we build a system for them. While we do need some data from the PSAP, the process is straightforward—building the call flows on our side and simply repointing their 10-digit non-emergency number to Viiz. From there, we handle the rest. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for 9-1-1 centers to integrate ViizViital into their operations.”

To learn more about ViizViital, contact Elise Bellick at 908-319-2717.

*Source: National Emergency Number Association.