Built with thoughtful safeguards, Draft One
saves officers one or more hours per day utilizing body-worn camera
audio to produce draft police reports in seconds with greater
quality and clarity
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.,
April 23,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Axon (Nasdaq: AXON), the global
public safety technology leader, today introduced Draft One, a
revolutionary new software product that drafts high-quality police
report narratives in seconds based on auto-transcribed body-worn
camera audio. Draft One leverages Generative Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and includes a range of critical safeguards,
requiring every report to be reviewed and approved by a human
officer, ensuring accuracy and accountability of the information
before reports are submitted.
For all law enforcement agencies, Draft One is a valuable tool
that will be an immediate force multiplier for their workforce.
Reporting is a critical component of good police work; however, it
has become a significant part of the job that officers commonly
refer to as "burdensome." Axon found that every week officers in
the U.S. can spend up to 40% of their time — or 15 hours per
week — on what is essentially data entry. Additionally, prosecutors
and defense attorneys have shared that they welcome the quality
improvement of Draft One reports as they can help support and
accelerate the judicial process.
"Every single officer in the U.S. writes police reports,
often every day and normally multiple times a day," said Axon CEO
and Founder Rick Smith. "As we've
done with Draft One, harnessing the power of AI will prove to be
one of the most impactful technological advancements of our time to
help scale police work and revolutionize the way public safety
operates."
Augment and amplify officers to better serve their
communities
Police departments across the U.S. are understaffed. While
agencies are emphasizing hiring and retention, demand to fill open
roles is low. The shortage results in longer response times to
calls for service and officers working overtime, which can lead to
burnout and be costly for taxpayers. Ultimately, Draft One has the
potential to augment and amplify officers, giving them back time to
better serve their communities.
Draft One is the latest giant leap toward Axon's moonshot
goal to reduce gun-related deaths between police and the public.
Axon developed Draft One to positively impact the trajectory of
what officers can achieve, allowing them to reclaim time for more
meaningful and impactful work, such as investigations, patrol,
training, wellness and rest.
Agency trials have resulted in roughly one hour of time saved
per day on paperwork. For every eight officers who use Draft One
during their day, that translates to an extra eight-hour shift or
more. When officers can spend more time connecting with the
community and taking care of themselves both physically and
mentally, they can make better decisions that lead to more
successful de-escalated outcomes. Draft One also increases job
satisfaction by helping police officers get a quality head-start on
a high-volume, time-consuming task.
Reduce paperwork and generate higher quality reports
Report narratives are written following calls for service and
incidents in the community and are used to summarize these
incidents within the overall police report. Draft One accelerates
the tedious task of reporting like no other solution before,
leveraging AI to create a draft narrative quickly. Audio from Axon
Body 3 and 4 (BWC) camera footage is uploaded over LTE and
transcribed automatically, so report drafts are available within
five minutes of an incident ending.
"With over 27 years of experience in law enforcement, I have
seen technology come and go, but Draft One is one of the most
exciting innovations for law enforcement I have ever seen," said
Fort Collins Colorado Police
Services Sergeant Robert Younger.
"Our agency has been testing Draft One, and we have seen an 82%
decrease in time spent writing reports. Testing Officers have also
shared that the quality of their reports has improved
substantially, with Draft One including statements and actions that
could have easily been overlooked or missed if done manually. Draft
One has exceeded our expectations and will be a huge asset to our
agency."
Axon conducted a double-blind study to compare the quality
between report narratives written with Draft One and those without.
Results showed that Draft One performed equal to or better than
officer-only report narratives across five dimensions, including
completeness, neutrality, objectivity, terminology and coherence.
With higher quality and more consistent reports, the judicial
system will have more clear, factual information to use to help
accelerate justice when called for. Learn more about the
study, which was conducted with 24 independent experts, including
district attorneys, field operations command staff and inclusion
scholars.
Innovating responsibly at Axon
Axon's product development is driven by responsible innovation,
grounded in a set of guiding principles in key areas to ensure that
everything we do serves as a force for good. Axon recognizes the
immense promise of ethical AI innovation and aims to harness
cutting-edge AI technology to revolutionize public safety, all the
while prioritizing the rigorous mitigation of biases and other
potential risks. This includes building tools that preserve the
crucial role of human decision-making with specific controls that
keep officers in-the-loop, while significantly improving efficiency
and efficacy.
Draft One includes a range of strict safeguards and requires
that humans make the decisions in key moments:
- Officer required to review and sign-off: Once the report
narrative has been edited and key information has been added,
officers are required to sign-off on the report's accuracy before
submitting for the next round of human review.
- Adheres to the audio data: Report narratives are drafted
strictly from the audio transcript from the body-worn camera
recording. Axon calibrated the underlying model for Draft One to
prevent speculation or embellishments.
- Controls to ensure proofreading: Each draft includes
placeholders that officers are required to edit, by either adding
more information or removing the placeholder.
- Report drafts are restricted to minor incidents and
charges: The default experience limits report drafts to
minor incident types and charge levels, specifically excluding
incidents where arrests took place and for felonies. With this
default, agencies can get started with Draft One and gain
tremendous value in expediting report writing for the overwhelming
majority of reports officers submit. This allows agencies the
option to gain experience on low severity reports first, then
expand to more severe reports once they gain experience in how to
use the tool effectively. Agencies can set a policy determining
which reports are eligible for Draft One utilization, and the tool
then ensures enforcement of the agency policy.
Axon rigorously tests AI-enabled products to measure inherent
bias in the models before they are released. Axon also actively
seeks external feedback from its Ethics and Equity Advisory Council
(EEAC) and others during product development, as it has with Draft
One. Input from Axon's EEAC resulted in purposeful additions to
Draft One's development process and resulting product, including
conducting the double-blind study to measure quality and to test
for bias risks.
"Rigorous testing is essential for ensuring accuracy and ethical
integrity in new technologies. I commend Axon for their proactive
approach in appropriately addressing the inherent challenges that
may come with large language models," said Axon Ethics and Equity
Advisory Council member Broderick Turner, PhD. "Axon's
dedication to refining language tone to mitigate biases, while
leveraging technology for good is crucial for fostering an
equitable society. I'm inspired to continue partnering with them to
promote continuous improvement and innovation in public safety and
believe their commitment to mitigate unintended consequences
through bias testing and appropriate safeguards is the key to
innovating responsibly."
Draft One is available today in the U.S. as part of the
Axon ecosystem and works for Axon body-worn camera and Axon
Evidence customers, with even easier and more seamless insertion
into Axon Records incident reports. For agencies not yet using Axon
Records, the generated reports can be easily inserted into their
current RMS. Data is always secured within the Axon network, where
transcripts and reports maintain agency security controls. Axon
unveiled this latest technology innovation at its leading public
safety technology and training conference, Axon Week. To learn more
about the news announced at Axon Week, see Axon's blog.
About Axon
Axon is the technology leader in global public safety.
Our moonshot goal is to cut gun-related deaths between
police and the public in the U.S. by 50% before 2033. Axon is
building the public safety operating system of the future by
integrating hardware devices and cloud software solutions that lead
modern policing, defense and security. The Axon ecosystem includes
TASER energy devices, body-worn cameras, in-car cameras,
cloud-hosted digital evidence management solutions, productivity
software, real-time operations capabilities and third-party
integrations through Axon's partner network. Axon's growing global
customer base includes first responders across international,
federal, state and local law enforcement, fire, corrections and
emergency medical services, as well as the justice sector,
commercial enterprises and consumers.
Non-Axon trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Axon, Axon Body, Axon Ecosystem, Axon Evidence, Axon Records, Draft
One, TASER and Protect Life are trademarks of Axon Enterprise,
Inc., some of which are registered in the US and other countries.
For more information, visit www.axon.com/legal. All rights
reserved.
Follow Axon here:
- Axon on X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/axon_us
- Axon on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Axon.ProtectLife/
Note to Investors
Please visit http://investor.axon.com, https://www.axon.com/press,
www.twitter.com/axon_us and
https://www.facebook.com/Axon.ProtectLife/ where Axon discloses
information about the company, its financial information and its
business.
Media Contact
Victoria
Keough
press@axon.com
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