Motorola Solutions buys Hyper, which uses agentic AI to reduce 911 telecommunicators’ workload by handling a significant percentage of non-emergency calls
By Donny Jackson,Editor,Urgent Communications
Motorola Solutions has acquired HyperYou (Hyper), which provides conversational, agentic artificial-intelligence (AI) technology that is designed to reduce the burden on public-safety-answering-point (PSAP) telecommunicators by handling a significant number percentage of non-emergency calls.
Motorola Solutions’ corporate vice president for product and technology, Jeremiah Nelson said last week’s purchase of Hyper’s AI-driven solution for non-emergency calls happened is ideal to help ease the workloads of understaffed telecommunicators.
“Hyper’s technology for non-emergency call-taking has been proven,” Nelson said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “They’ve been successfully scaling up and adding customers. That technology is ready today to begin to add value to PSAPs, and the need has never been higher, given the staffing shortages and the high volume of non-emergency calls coming into PSAPs.
“Some agencies are seeing as much as two-thirds of their call volume being non-emergency [calls]. And with the staffing shortage—25 per cent vacancies, in many cases—there’s a real need, because of overwork and understaffing. If we can use AI to help solve that problem and get more emergency calls to emergency call-takers, that’s a great scenario.”
Nelson explained how Hyper’s technology works.
“If you were calling into an administrative line with a non-emergency call, your call can be answered by Hyper’s agent and—depending on the nature of your inquiry—it can go to resolution, with no human involvement whatsoever,” Nelson said. “It’s literally taking the work off the shoulders of our overloaded telecommunicators.”
Hyper’s technology is “very simple” to implement for a PSAP and can be deployed “in a matter of weeks or months—not years,” according to Nelson. This should let a 911 center quickly realize benefits from Hyper’s AI-powered response to non-emergency calls, he said.
“Hyper adds value immediately,” Nelson said. “It can integrate into an existing phone system, and [Hyper’s AI] agents can begin to provide value to PSAPs very quickly.
“On top of that, we’ll be integrating [Hyper] with our VESTA solutions and computer-aided-dispatch solutions more directly to handle and automate more of that workload. But this is ready to be deployed today.”
Indeed, chief information officer for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, Ashish Kakkad said the Hyper solution has eased the workload burden on the jurisdiction’s 911 telecommunicators.
“Hyper’s agentic AI is helping us better manage high volumes of non-emergency calls and reduce the strain put on our call handlers and dispatchers,” Kakkad said in a prepared statement. “By automating the routing of non-emergency calls, our telecommunicators can focus more of their time on emergency situations that require judgment, empathy and critical thinking. It’s a practical use of technology that improves outcomes for our community.”
Hyper CEO and co-founder Ben Sanders said what Kakkad noted for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office has been a goal for his company, which is now part of Motorola Solutions.
“We built Hyper around a simple, non-negotiable truth: when someone calls for help, there can’t be a delay,” Sanders said in a prepared statement. “We’re proud to join Motorola Solutions in leading this new wave of agentic AI for the 911 workflow—technology that can move as fast as the crisis at the other end of the call.”
Terms of the deal for Hyper—previously a private company—were not disclosed, according to Motorola Solutions officials.
Nelson said the Hyper acquisition marks the beginning of a larger Motorola Solutions initiative to implement AI into the public-safety communications workflow.
“Hyper is the start of a broader move into [AI] agents by Motorola Solutions. You could think about things like language translation being provided with an agent. You can think about things like guiding protocols to a call-taker with an AI agent. You can think about helping to route and get the right DFR [Drone as First Responder] drones in the right places with AI agents.
“This is a huge opportunity for public safety going forward, and Hyper’s a key piece of this foundation for us going forward as we build more agents as part of our Assist portfolio.”
Motorola Solutions’ executive vice president and chief technology officer, Mahesh Saptharishi expressed similar feelings about Hyper joining Motorola Solutions.
“Assist Agents can amplify human attention and accelerate action, giving first responders more time to save more lives,” Saptharishi said in a prepared statement. “Assist is already saving public-safety agencies hours. With today’s announcement [regarding the acquisition of Hyper], we’re further accelerating actions to shrink the gap between the moment a caller dials for help and when help arrives.”
