
15 segments available
Can AI Help Save Lives? | Michael Chime (Prepared) x Kimberly Tan (a16z) In this episode, a16z partner Kimberly Tan sits down with Michael Chime, the CEO and co-founder of AI emergency response platform Prepared, for a powerful conversation about how AI is transforming public safety — starting with 911 call centers. They discuss how Prepared went from an idea in a Yale dorm room to a fast-growing platform augmenting emergency response nationwide. Michael shares insights into the company's go-to-market journey, the challenges of integrating voice AI into highly sensitive environments, and what it takes to build trust with government agencies. Together, they also dive into the real-world impact of AI agents in emergency services, what "human-in-the-loop" really means in crisis moments, and why AI’s future in government is only just beginning. Follow everyone on social media: Kimberly Tan: https://x.com/kimberlywtan Michael Chime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelchime/ ⏱ Topics Covered: 00:00 – Intro to Prepared 00:55 – Founding Story 02:32 – GTM Path Journey 04:34 – How Prepared Is Using AI To Solve Macro Problems For 911 Call Centers 07:12 – Customer Reactions To Using AI 09:08 – The Balance Of Augmenting The AI Work With Humans 11:57 – Managing Data Sensitivity 12:51 – Voice AI Integration 15:21 – Will AI Agents Handle 911 Calls? 15:59 – Customer Onboarding Process 17:14 – Prepared Employees: Tech Or Industry? 17:57 – Managing Company Culture 18:41 – The Role Of AI In Government And Public Services 20:28 – Prepared’s Scale And Future Trajectory 21:11 – Goals For 2025 🔔 Subscribe to stay updated on more conversations at the intersection of AI, public sector innovation, and the future of emergency response.
"somebody needs help, help them, right? And you can draw like any big and small thing that we do in government to that idea. In 311 or even 91, that's like the epitome of that. It's in 911. Like, I rea..."
"everything gets out to the responder. And so this is obviously like transformative and life-changing technology. It's also an area that I think a lot of people haven't thought of applying tech too. So..."
"people actually communicate today. Yeah, that's right. You know, one of the other things that's really interesting about prepared is uh I don't think people historically thought that selling into sta..."
"our users are facing and how do we go about solving this and now we think AI is we should rally the business around AI because it can solve a ton of problems that were unsolvable 2 3 years ago the kin..."
"problem. You know, like I said, non-English calls on average have, you know, 1 to 7 minute hold times, right? Depending on the language, right? Some are much faster. Spanish is much faster, but you ha..."
"between obviously augmenting some of the work as well as you know taking over some of it end to end. Yeah we get this question all the time in centers. I use two silly examples and I think they're us..."
"unique in the space. So that's one thing that we stick by. The second is um there's data security policies like SEIUS that we adhere to just criminal justice information security and so we adhere to t..."
"coming in, I think it's very innovative in the space. And I'd love to hear how did you guys initially come up with this idea? How does like that product like work in practice? cuz I imagine there's a ..."
"automating anything is because we believe they are tied up in situations where empathy is not that important. Like again, a noise complaint or parking ticket, it's not that important. And that they re..."
"you talk a little bit about that? Like how does the onboarding or implementation process for a customer actually work? Some of our products do take a lot of time. Some of them you'd be surprised how ..."
"people that you know come from the valley etc and or from fast growing startups and product engineering etc. The other half of the business comes from 911 and public safety. It's like quite the group...."
"for our customers. So one of the things we do is first 90 days of onboarding somebody has to go to visit one of the customers. And I think and so we started doing that really early and it was just so ..."
"lot of cities and that's like the storefront of the city and we don't do it so well today like I guess a zoom now point is like I think the the like goal of government at the end of the day is somebod..."
"EMS. We cover six of those 911 centers and so then a six of responding agencies too can get data from us. In terms of our AI products, we process or on track to process over 20 million calls this year..."
"on what they're really good at just being an empathetic ear to the caller and everything in the background is just being done and the entire non-emergency call volume is offloaded. I think every city ..."