Intrado unveils plans to streamline 911 translation with AIIntrado unveils plans to streamline 911 translation with AI

Directors at 911 centers should have an AI-powered alternative to existing human-based translation services later this year, potentially saving public-safety answering points (PSAPs) time and money, while also providing a foundation for future applications, according to officials from Intrado Life & Safety.

D. Jeremy DeMar, Intrado’s senior manager for government and regulatory affairs, said the “lion’s share” of PSAPs in the United States currently subscribe to language-translation services similar to those he utilized as a 911 director for decades. These legacy services require a call-taker to seek the expertise of a third-party language translator when a 911 call is made by a non-English speaker seeking emergency help.

“They will engage the services of a translation service, conference them into the call—so it’s now a three-way call—and that [language-services] individual will determine the language being spoken and what type of interpreter is needed” DeMar said during an interview with Urgent Communications. “The process is kind of clumsy and kind of cumbersome. There are situations where messaging or topics are lost in translation, so that also presents a challenge.”

But this process is being streamlined through by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, which can reduce response times by providing real-time translation and transcription of 911 calls, according to DeMar.

“What we’re now starting to see are solution providers that are now starting to engage different aspects of artificial intelligence into that process, potentially bypassing the need for engaging a third-party translation service,” he said.

Patrick Arsenault, director of product management and AI, echoed this sentiment.

“Now, you can translate the caller’s message a little bit faster, and you can maybe get the location a little bit faster with that [AI-powered] service.,” Arsenault said during an interview with Urgent Communications.

“The fact that you have transcription on top of that, the call-taker can actually understand what’s going on with the translation, so they can follow the conversation in text … so it gives them additional context to that call, so they hopefully can make the right decision, in terms of where to send that first responder.”

AI-based translation solutions also offer support in more languages—as well as specific dialects for some—than typical human-based translation services can offer at all times, Arsenault said.

“These language services that are AI-based support a lot of languages, so it give us a lot of flexibility in the populations that PSAPs can serve,” Arsenault said. “We’ve done a lot of analysis across multiple PSAPs in the U.S., and you’d be surprised to see how much local variability there is.

“A lot of the AI-based services are really good now, and they understand dialects—multiple versions of French, Spanish and all of that. So, that gives a lot more flexibility to the PSAPs and PSAP director.”

While AI-powered translation solutions are accurate today, they should only improve in the future, as the AI engines learn more while translating an ever-growing number of 911 calls, Arsenault said.

With this in mind, Intrado already provides AI-powered translation and transcription for text-to-911 communications supported by multiple PSAPs, Arsenault said. Intrado plans to offer real-time voice-to-voice translation—with transcription—for emergency calls by the end of this year, he said.

“From an Intrado perspective, you can use it in a legacy [911 environment]—that is the whole point,” Arsenault said. “We have the largest installed base, so we want to make sure that all of our customer PSAPs can enable that particular feature.

“Of course, it would require an upgrade to the release that supports that feature, but it’s a simple process. We want to make sure that everybody can get access to the feature.”

DeMar said the potential benefits of AI-powered translation are significant, especially if the 911 caller speaks a language that is used less commonly in the U.S.

“When you think about legacy scenarios, not only are we at the mercy of the [translation-services] company having somebody to answer the phone, but then it takes them a little bit of time to figure out what language is being spoken,” DeMar said. “That translator, who is probably fluent in Spanish—the second-most-spoken language in the U.S.—maybe doesn’t speak Ukrainian, so now another [translator] has to be found.

“Instead, now we have AI, which is immediately picking this up and—within a couple of words—determining not only what the language is … but providing real-time transcription, so that 911 call-taker can see what is being said, the minute it’s happening, in text format. So, we are shaving off precious seconds—and minutes, in some cases—to a process that used to take far longer to complete.”

An AI-powered translation also promises to offer PSAPs much greater budgetary certainty than human-based translation services, which can charge by the minute. As an example, this could prove particularly beneficial for U.S. cities hosting games in the 2026 World Cup, which could generate a spike in emergency calls from visitors who speak languages typically unfamiliar in the geographic region, DeMar said.

Intrado has not released pricing at this time, but Arsenault said that it is “more affordable than (human-based) translation services.”

In addition, the transcription portion of the AI-powered translation offering can be leveraged to open myriad opportunities that promise to help public-safety agencies deploy resources more effectively, such as call summarization, sentiment analysis and keyword detection, Arsenault said.

“Translation is just one piece of the overall equation,” Arsenault said. “Once we have that data transcribed, there are lots of things we can do with it … So, you get multiple bangs for that buck, once you start the process.”