For three days in mid-October, thousands of police leaders gather at the annual International Association of Chiefs of Police conference to learn from subject matter experts, network with colleagues from around the world and explore thousands of product solutions on display. Here we highlight Axon’s latest technology aimed at helping police and communities work together to solve crime faster, one of more than 600 exhibitors at IACP.
DENVER — For Jeff Kunins, Axon’s chief product officer and chief technology officer, the company’s mission has stayed consistent over the years: use technology to bring officers and citizens closer together. “Axon has always been about collaboration between law enforcement and the communities they serve,” he said. “Every call starts with uncertainty, and true resolution depends on community partnership.”
That focus on connection runs through everything the company is developing, from in-the-moment tools that help officers communicate more clearly to platforms that streamline evidence sharing after an incident.
Frontline connection tools
Axon’s Community Connect program allows businesses, schools and organizations to register their security cameras, set access rules and decide when to share live or recorded video with law enforcement. The goal is real-time situational awareness without losing control. “It’s totally optional and opt-in,” Kunins said. “Every access is alert-based, logged and auditable so agencies can do their jobs while communities know their privacy is protected.”
The system builds on Axon Fusus, which gives agencies a live, map-based view of both public and private camera networks. From a real time crime center, analysts and supervisors can see video sources populate on screen as incidents unfold, allowing faster and more informed decision-making. In Miami Beach, integrating more than 1,600 cameras through Axon Fusus and Community Connect has improved situational awareness and helped the agency maintain a two-minute average response time.
Axon has extended that visibility through a partnership with the Citizen app, which lets real time crime centers view live community livestreams directly in Fusus when users choose to broadcast publicly. “As we send officers to a scene, it basically gives an additional set of cameras for more awareness in that moment,” Kunins said. “And again, it’s entirely up to the individual to share.”
On the ground, Axon Assistant brings AI-driven translation directly into the officer’s body-worn camera. Real-Tim Translation is activated by a simple push-to-talk button, the feature listens, translates and speaks responses aloud in real time across roughly 50 languages.
“We strive to take technologies people might encounter elsewhere and put them in exactly the right place for officers to use,” Kunins said. In Bernalillo County, New Mexico, deputies used Axon Assistant to communicate with a Russian-speaking man during a chaotic encounter — a situation that could have turned violent (see the video below). “It was made so much more rational and reasonable simply because they could understand each other,” Kunins said.
Post-incident collaboration
After the scene clears, Axon’s connected ecosystem keeps information moving securely. Within Axon Evidence, the Community Request feature now integrates directly with Ring. Investigators can define a case area, prompting Ring to notify nearby camera owners who haven’t opted out. If residents choose to share video, it uploads directly into Evidence.com with full chain-of-custody tracking. Agencies can publish transparency portals showing how the feature is used — a design choice, Kunins said, that responds to past privacy concerns about public-private video sharing.
Axon’s recent integration with Auror gives agencies a single view of retail-related cases shared by participating businesses through the Retail Crime Hub, creating a direct, trackable channel for collaboration. Through My90, agencies can send short surveys after encounters to gauge community sentiment and identify areas for improvement. Together, these tools help departments close cases faster while reinforcing transparency and accountability.
Building responsibly for what’s next
Kunins said privacy and ethics are built into every product through Axon’s Responsible Innovation program and its Ethics and Equity Advisory Councils in the U.S. and U.K. “Every product we develop has to embed inquiry and inspection into how it impacts the community,” he said. “Our product managers work directly with our advisory councils early in the process to co-create the right answers.”
Looking ahead, Axon is preparing to release Outpost and Lightpost, two fixed-camera platforms that extend the company’s vehicle and aerial intelligence network. The systems build on Axon’s Fleet 3 in-car platform and connect seamlessly with real time crime centers and Drone as First Responder programs. “We’re in a period of extreme reinvention for public safety,” Kunins said. “Our job is to make everything work well together on behalf of communities.”
Top takeaway
“The intersection of artificial intelligence, real time crime centers and Drones as First Responders — we are in a period of extreme reinvention, of extreme high-stakes opportunity and challenge for agencies, and extreme opportunity for tech, when done right, to help solve and improve call to closure for agencies using that connected triangle.”
Learn more at axon.com.
