REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
Law enforcement agencies across the country are adopting body-worn cameras as a means both of increasing their transparency with the public and generating actionable feedback to improve officer performance. Problem is, all these body cams produce terabytes of data daily, far more than many departments can effectively handle. That's why Taser (yes those guys, they make body cameras too) announced on Thursday that it has acquired a pair of companies that specialize in computer- and machine-vision to create the "Axon AI" group. Together, they'll develop a platform that can efficiently parse this flood of data in real time.
The Axon AI group will include about 20 programmers and engineers. They'll be tasked with developing AI capabilities specifically for public safety and law enforcement. The backbone of the Axon AI platform comes from Dextro Inc. Their computer-vision and deep learning system can search the visual contents of a video feed in real time. Technology from the Fossil Group, which Taser also acquired, will support Dextro's search capability by "improving the accuracy, efficiency and speed of processing images and video," according to the company's press release.
The AI platform is the latest addition to Taser's Axon ecosystem, which include everything from body and dash cameras to evidence and interview logging. Altogether the Axon system handles 5.2 petabytes of data from more than half of the nation's major city police departments.
With the new AI system in place, law enforcement could finally get a handle on all that footage. "Axon AI will greatly reduce the time spent preparing videos for public information requests or court submission," Taser CEO, Rick Smith, said in a statement. "This will lay the foundation for a future system where records are seamlessly recorded by sensors rather than arduously written by police officers overburdened by paperwork."