Boulder PD to deploy Axon's 'Ashley' AI on non-emergency calls

Boulder's police department will begin routing non-emergency callers to an AI assistant named Ashley, built by Axon, with a soft launch at the end of October 2026 and a full rollout targeted by year's end, CBS Colorado reported. Non-emergency calls — noise complaints, abandoned vehicles, animal control — make up about 70% of the department's volume, according to Brad Riggin, who manages safety communications in Boulder.

In a demo, the bot opens with, "I'm an automated assistant for the non-emergency line. How can I help you today?" When a hypothetical wildlife report escalated to possibly involve danger, the call was transferred to a human on the emergency line. Human staff will review every report the system generates.

Riggin framed the deployment as a staffing play and pushed back on public skepticism. "There's no need to be skeptical. This system has been tested and tried," he said. "What it's really going to do for us is let the dispatchers prioritize those calls where seconds matter, instead of being taken away from those calls by lesser priority calls."

On the room's reaction, he was flatter: "It's mixed, like everything with AI. It's mixed, right? But I think people are excited to have a new tool that can take some of the burden off their plate."