AI will help Toronto Police to administer non-emergency calls

The Toronto Police Service (TPS) is adopting an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to eliminate wait times on its non-emergency numbers. Moving forwards, people will have their calls answered by an AI chatbot similar to Amazon's Alexa or Apple’s Siri. The TPS has contracted the Canadian supplier Hyper to ease the strain on the system. If the bot determines the situation is an emergency, the person will be told to hang up and dial 911. Otherwise, the call may be channeled to the appropriate sector. A similar product is already in use for 911 calls TPS superintendent Gregory Watts tells The Wire Report that improvements in the 911 service generated by AI came at the expense of the non-emergency lines. “While we saw our 911 standard levels go through the roof, and we’re finally meeting them for the first time in probably five years, I’d argue more, the non-emergency standards started to suffer,” he reports. “I’m the one who had to make that hard decision to say that we need to focus on 911.” With 911 functioning at an optimal level, the police force is concentrating on non-emergencies. The AI solution filters out the noise and makes police work proceed more smoothly, the officer says. “It makes the concept of a service level null and void because every phone call gets answered immediately,” Watts explains. “It’s a conversational AI where we have uploaded or we are in the process of uploading all of our standard operating procedures into it so that we know that it’s being consistent. It will ask the caller what’s going on.” There have been reports of AI providing wrong information to users. The 26-year veteran of the TPS isn’t worried about that happening with the new system. “We are putting a lot of rigor around the implementation of this solution,” he states. “That rigor includes a heavy amount of testing. The fact that our guidelines are standard operating procedures that we currently operate on and all of that is being built into the system.” Humans will constantly monitor the calls to ensure that no calls fall through the cracks. “We will always have somebody that has eyes on what is going on,” Watts asserts. The TPS is aiming to have the new system functional by March. The department has been running an advertising campaign to remind citizens of the proper use of 911 and non-emergency lines. ppark@thewirereport.ca

AI will help Toronto Police to administer non-emergency calls

Regulatory |
By Paul Park
|January 28, 2026

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AI will help Toronto Police to administer non-emergency calls

Regulatory | By Paul Park |January 28, 2026

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|January 28, 2026