Last September, as we announced our Series B, I shared a quote that's stayed with me since:
"The future is already here—it's just not evenly distributed."
Often, if you look around you, you can see the future. You probably remember seeing a computer for the first time or ordering something online and having it near-instantly show up at your door. In that moment, you knew you were seeing something different—a glimpse of what was coming, the future not yet distributed.
September felt like that for me.
We had launched our first real application of AI in 911 with call transcription and translation, people were using it and saving lives, and you could see clearly what it would become.
We believed AI had the potential to grow into much more — and that maybe one day there would be a single, integrated, AI-powered solution that could transform everything about how emergency response works.
Nine months later, pieces of that vision are arriving faster than I could have expected.
Learning in the real world
After our Series B, we went straight to our 911 partners, asking questions and wanting to learn:
- How might AI better support emergency response?
- What tasks could it assist that’d make callers safer and tele-communicators’ jobs easier?
In just nine short months, we've seen those questions lead to answers that became real products driving real outcomes in communities every day.
Live in our partner centers across the country, we've seen:
- AI fully handling non-emergency calls in some of the largest cities in the country, freeing up human focus for critical emergency calls
- Non-English calls moving entirely off third-party interpretation services, handled instantly and accurately by the call-taker themselves, improving response times dramatically
- Real-time, AI-powered call summaries reducing reliance on multitasking and note-taking, bringing calm to operators and ensuring no detail is missed
- 100% of calls quality assured—not only for compliance, but for feedback and recognition of those doing a consistently remarkable job
- AI monitoring all radio channels for critical keywords, catching every detail and helping ensure the right field responders are in the right place at the right time
These outcomes, combined, drastically change the level of service provided to communities while alleviating the burden on telecommunicators, freeing them up to do what they uniquely do best—empathetically serve the caller.
As the rate of change increases, I believe this is just the beginning.
What we're working toward
Prepared's mission is to ensure that every emergency receives the best possible response.
That mission begs the question: what's keeping us from the best today? In our experience, two things come up repeatedly:
- The burden on 911 call-takers and dispatchers is too high. Call volumes are rising. Staffing is down, yet the same performance expectation remains. This puts our centers in the difficult position of doing their best to meet standards while trapped in endless cycles of forced overtime, poor retention, and no ability to train to improve.
- Their tools are fragmented. For far too long, call-takers have been forced to toggle between disconnected systems—CHE, CAD, transcription tools, QA, and more. Centers have been faced with what we hope is a false binary: innovation versus integration. If they want innovation, they must add another monitor. If they want integration, they likely need to work with an incumbent that is integration in name-only. In an AI-powered future, I believe this won't simply be a matter of inconvenience—it will detract from the performance of AI-powered systems. AI is only as good as the data we give it. It's most effective when it sees the full picture. Data silos and poor integrations reduce the intelligence of the system and the effectiveness of the response.
We believe the future could be different:
- AI alleviates burden end-to-end and the technology stack becomes deeply integrated over time.
- AI eliminates the friction and clutter that get in the way in order to support the deeply human characteristics that define this work: judgment, instinct, and compassion.
- One intelligent AI system operating across the entire call flow creates a data engine that helps every person in the center make better decisions.
I'll be the first to acknowledge that we’re not there yet. While I've seen the progress over the last nine months, and have never been more optimistic about the future, this shift will not happen overnight; it'll happen through long-term commitment and hard-earned trust.
I challenge our team by saying that if we build thoughtfully, stay extremely close to our users, and think long-term — the 911 technology of the future will be intelligent and integrated. There could be a single company that will offer both innovation and integration simultaneously. Centers will no longer have to choose between the best solution and the integrated one.
To realize this vision, we know we have so much work to do. We are eager to walk that road and hope to continue to have the remarkable good fortune of walking it side-by-side with the centers who do this work every day. We want to build a better future with the same thoughtfulness and resolve they bring to every call.
This journey will require thoughtful, deliberate investment — and, on that point, I have extremely exciting news.
Prepared has raised $80 million in Series C funding, bringing our total investments to over $130 million, which we’ll deploy toward research & development with an eye toward the long-term future of AI powered emergency response.
Thank you
To our partners in public safety: you've welcomed me and Prepared into your world and, for that and much more, I'm deeply grateful. It's been the challenge and the privilege of my life to work for you. You've shaped every feature we've built and every step we've taken. As we announce this milestone, I'd just like to say thank you—not simply from Prepared, but from everyone whose lives you touch. The work you do every day is the foundation of our communities. Every day, you answer the call and we're all lucky to have you.
To the Prepared team: You've built with urgency and humility. You've made hard calls, held high standards, and shown up every day for something bigger than yourself. I couldn't ask for a better team. Our work is just beginning.
To our investors: thank you for backing a mission that's hard, necessary, and too long overlooked.
We all have the chance to create a better tomorrow, one that’s safer, one that’s more human.
Prepared is here to help bring it to life—one call, one partner, one lesson at a time.
Time to build.
– Michael
