DENVER – At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley introduced what he calls the next evolution in public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to help law enforcement investigate faster, allocate smarter and operate with greater transparency.
Flock’s new conversational AI assistant, NightShift, and Flock Alpha, a U.S.-built drone specifically designed for Drone as First Responder missions, signal the company’s continued evolution toward real-time, AI-driven policing.
“Every other industry uses AI to make professionals better,” Langley said. “Public safety deserves the same – not artificial intelligence that replaces people, but amplified intelligence that empowers them.”
From CompStat to conversational AI
Langley began with a simple premise: Information delay costs time and outcomes. “By the time CompStat reports arrive, they’re already outdated,” he said. “NightShift lets chiefs and command staff understand what’s actually happening in their city right now.”
Using natural language prompts similar to ChatGPT, officers and analysts can type requests like ‘Show me residential burglaries in the last seven days’ or ‘Reallocate resources based on recent aggravated assaults.’ Within seconds, NightShift scans data through Flock’s Nova analytics platform to produce an up-to-date snapshot of incidents, patterns and resource needs.
“NightShift automates what crime analysts do today in days – now in a minute,” Langley explained. “If I’m investigating armored truck robberies, I can search every camera in the city, identify cars tailing them, check RMS for prior arrests and notify someone – all in under a minute.”
Real-time case building
In a live demonstration, Langley showed how NightShift can:
- Search every connected Flock camera for vehicles or attributes (make, color, plate, location).
- Automatically build hotlists and identify vehicles tailing high-risk targets.
- Map recent vehicle movement histories and cross-check arrest records.
- Upload a BOLO image, extract vehicle details and resolve a case “in minutes, not hours.”
“The reaction from investigators is one word: addicted,” Langley said. “They see how it turns hours of work into seconds.” For Langley, the motivation goes beyond efficiency. “In San Francisco, for example, the DA has something like 7,000 cases pending for prosecution,” he said. “To me, it’s exceedingly unjust that those people haven’t had a chance to move through the system faster. There are hundreds of thousands of unsolved homicides. It’s not fair. It’s not right. When chiefs see this, they believe we can solve more crime – and solve it faster.”
Transparent, explainable AI
NightShift is intentionally designed for auditability – what Langley calls “breadcrumb transparency.” Every query or action can be retraced step by step.
“In court, you can’t say, ‘The AI said he’s a suspect,’” Langley said. “We built NightShift so a human can recreate everything it does. It’s not black-box AI; it’s transparent, explainable and defensible.”
The system also fosters collective intelligence. With hundreds of thousands of daily active users across Flock’s network, agencies can share effective investigative prompts and workflows. “You used to go to IACP once a year to learn what another department was doing,” Langley said. “Now you can learn from them every day inside Flock.”
Asked where the name NightShift came from, Langley smiled. “It’s this idea that, what if we could have a third shift for a police department?” he said. “You could have a crime analyst who works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. NightShift is that constant partner, always awake, always watching out for you.”
Langley said the technology could even reshape how departments start their shifts. “Roll call today is a lot of good banter,” he said. “Now it can also be, ‘Here’s what happened in the last 12 hours – and here’s how we’ll respond in the next 12.’”
Eyes in the sky: Flock Alpha
Extending the company’s Amplified Intelligence suite, Flock Alpha is a domestically built Drone as First Responder (DFR) platform that can be triggered automatically by a Flock camera alert. Once airborne, Alpha follows vehicles from altitude and streams live high-definition video to officers and command staff.
“We wanted to build the camera first and make it fly,” Langley said. “It has a 40X optical zoom that can read a license plate from 2,000 feet away.”
Alpha incorporates FAA-approved airspace deconfliction using ADS-B and radar, an integrated parachute and multi-carrier 5G connectivity that merges four data streams to maintain a continuous video feed. Its smart dock supports both contact charging and battery swapping, enabling relaunch in about 90 seconds.
“Traditional drones give you 10 minutes on scene,” Langley noted. “We designed Alpha to stay up around 20 to 30 minutes, land, swap batteries and be back in the air almost immediately.”
Amplifying intelligence, not replacing it
Langley emphasizes that the technology is built to serve human decision-makers, not override them. “When I think about AI in public safety, it’s not about replacement – it’s about amplification,” he said. “We’re helping great investigators solve more crime, faster.”
With products like NightShift and Alpha, Flock Safety’s vision of 24/7 amplified intelligence is already taking shape – and the industry is taking notice. The company recently earned a spot on Forbes’ 2024 Cloud 100 list, highlighting its rapid growth and impact on law enforcement’s digital transformation.
“The goal isn’t to automate the badge,” Langley said. “It’s to make sure every officer and analyst has the power of real-time intelligence at their fingertips.”
For more information, visit https://www.flocksafety.com/.
