East County News Service
May 7, 2026 (San Diego County) — In an effort to give 9-1-1 dispatchers more room to breathe, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office is now using a new digital gatekeeper.
County residents are being asked to save a new number to their contacts — (858) 868-3200 — for all non-emergency matters.
The move marks the launch of a sophisticated Voice Artificial Intelligence system designed to process up to 400,000 non-emergency calls per year. Available 24/7, the system aims to slash wait times for routine inquiries while ensuring that human dispatchers remain focused on life-saving emergencies.
‘Hyper,’ the new voice of the SDSO
When residents dial the new non-emergency line, they won’t be met with a dial tone or a standard menu. Instead, they will speak with a Voice AI agent developed by Hyper, a public safety technology company specializing in police communications.
The AI is programmed to ask a short series of questions to determine the caller’s needs. From there, it can offer information and immediate answers regarding things like jail records, CCW permits or office hours. It can also route calls and transfer the caller to the correct Sheriff’s resource or department. Hyper will also be able to bridge the caller to a dispatcher for reports requiring service.
To ensure transparency and accuracy, all interactions with the system are recorded and transcribed in real time.
The Sheriff’s department, however stresses that humans are still very much in charge. All actual calls for service — situations where a deputy needs to be dispatched — will still be handled by live Sheriff’s Emergency Services Dispatchers.
“By automating the routing of non-emergency calls, our trained call takers can focus more of their time on emergency situations that require judgment, empathy, and critical thinking,” said Ashish Kakkad, Chief Information Officer at the SDSO. “It’s a practical use of technology that improves outcomes for our community.”
To prevent the AI from mishandling sensitive situations, Hyper is programmed to immediately “hand off” the call to a trained human dispatcher if the system detects the situation is an active emergency, if the AI cannot understand the caller’s request, if the caller requires a language or translation service not yet supported by the system, if there is unusual activity or discrepancies are detected during the call or if the request falls outside the system’s standard operating procedures.
The system was built by Hyper, a company founded by veteran engineers and dispatch experts. By partnering with agencies across North America, Hyper aims to make emergency response faster and more accessible by filtering out routine traffic that typically bogs down 9-1-1 centers.