The Pulse of 911 2026

of 911 centers are using AI or planning to

AI usage and plans are near-universal, and still growing, up from 75% of centers a year ago. Language translation usage saw the largest gain of any category (19% → 32%), with transcription close behind (25% → 33%). Comfort with AI assisting in 911 call-taking is still the minority view overall, but it grows fast once centers actually use it, with active users 2.6X more comfortable with it than non-users.

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of 911 centers are still short-staffed

Only 19% of centers report being fully staffed, and 90% still struggle to fill positions. Burnout and mental health remain the top-rated staffing challenge for the second year running (48%), ahead of hiring difficulty, headcount shortfalls, and training attrition. And progress has stalled: last year 54% of centers said vacancies were improving, while this year, only 34% can say the same.

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of 911 centers had an outage this year

Four in five centers went down at least once this year, unchanged from last year, and still an alarming share for infrastructure this critical. The pressure is building in two key areas: CAD outages are back up to 56%, right where they were two years ago. And cyberattacks climbed for the second year running to 11% of centers, the only category getting consistently worse.

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experience work stress on the job

Two in three telecommunicators say they experience work-related stress, and 58% say the job has affected their personal relationships or home life. Yet every burnout symptom tracked eased or held flat over the past three years, and 86% still rate their job enjoyment a 6 or higher out of 10. And support is shrinking: employer-provided services dipped slightly this year.

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