An AI assistant is now answering calls made to the Lompoc Police Department’s business line to report non-emergencies. Police hope the technology, called Hyper, will allow dispatchers to focus on emergency situations.
“It’ll help reduce the volume of calls coming directly into dispatch because there’s an enormous amount of calls that come through that aren’t emergencies,” Community Services Sgt. Scott Morgan told the Sun. “The Hyper support tool can help mitigate some of that and create less work for some of the dispatchers.”
The Lompoc Police Department partnered with Hyper to manage non-emergency calls to the department’s business line starting Feb. 10. All calls to 911 will still be received by a human dispatcher.
Hyper is a voice-based software that can respond to calls in multiple languages and is trained to manage minor incidents and guide callers to appropriate resources. Common calls that the technology might respond to in Lompoc are reports of petty theft, parking problems, fireworks, and loitering.
Adding the AI dispatch service comes just a couple of months after the Lompoc Police Department was cleared to operate drones as first responders on the scene. Other recent upgrades include the use of a dictation service for writing reports and a new radio system for the first time in three decades. Morgan said that since Police Chief Kevin Martin took the role in 2023, the department has embraced technology.
“He is all about trying to make the local police department as efficient as possible,” Morgan said.
Multiple public safety agencies in the U.S. and Canada are using Hyper, the company’s chief operating officer, Reinhard Ekl, told the Sun in an email. Lompoc is the first on the Central Coast. A large sheriff’s office in California also integrated the technology, but it hasn’t been publicly announced, Ekl added.
Hyper tested its software in stages, beginning with controlled scenarios from scripted cases that agencies commonly receive. The AI is also trained to transfer a distressed caller to a human if the situation is urgent.
“A key principle is that if the system is uncertain, it should hand off to a human rather than guess,” Ekl said.
When operational issues arise, the company identifies the problem, reviews and corrects the workflow, and tests the improvement before releasing it on a wide scale, Ekl explained.
Call the Lompoc Police Department’s business number, (805) 736-2341, to speak with Hyper for non-emergency purposes.
This article appears in February 12 – February 19, 2026.