How the Town of Gilbert Built the Right Foundation for Technology Adoption With Axon’s Draft One

Most city leaders are aware of the potential opportunities that emerging technologies offer for their organizations and their constituents. But the struggle most face is how to identify the right tools and how to strategically deploy them to achieve a good return on investment and serve stakeholders.

Here in Arizona, the Town of Gilbert has just achieved a successful 1-year milestone. The implementation of Axon’s Draft One, an AI-based incident reporting software, with the Town’s police department. Gilbert’s approach shows municipalities can embrace new tools in a responsible, timely manner, when they begin with clear principles, strong policies, defined success criteria and a deliberate pilot process. 

The Town of Gilbert & Draft One: Partnership Details

More than a year ago, the Gilbert Police Department approached city leaders about implementing Draft One, a safety product by local Scottsdale-based company Axon. Draft One is an AI-powered report-writing tool that uses audio from body camera recordings in Axon’s evidence system to generate police report narratives for officer review.

It’s meant to address operational pain points, including time spent writing reports, overtime and administrative burdens. It also improves report quality and illuminates details that officers may otherwise miss.

The Town of Gilbert has an emerging technology office that considers, researches and strategizes the implementation of technology like Draft One across Town departments. This ensures there’s always an incubator of ideas being worked on. 

For this program, the technology office created an initial 90-day pilot program with specific benchmarks to evaluate success. In addition to the success metrics around officer efficiency, they also provided a full analysis on how to implement the AI software, while addressing governance issues like data privacy, human oversight and the accuracy and transparency of the reporting output.

Zach Klinefelter, Gilbert’s Chief of Emerging Technology, explained, “We set up an evaluation protocol, along with go/no-go criteria and thresholds, before the pilot even began. That would ultimately inform the decision to enter into a long-term agreement (with Axon.)

“We have a pretty rigorous technology review process that brings in our legal, contracting and IT teams,” he added. “It’s a lengthy process, but an intentional one that allows us to talk through key considerations like system integration, data usage, storage and enterprise terms… and we have a fairly robust process for doing that.”

The results of the pilot were overwhelmingly positive, with clear reductions in time spent on report writing and strong, positive officer feedback. Building on that success, the department is now scaling usage and exploring where AI-assisted reporting can be extended further without compromising quality or oversight.

Lessons Other Cities Can Take Away From Gilbert PD’s Use of Draft One

Artificial intelligence’s rapid development has motivated many city leaders to discuss how their organizations can apply AI and other technologies to their cities. One important lesson from the Town of Gilbert is to first build a strong foundation for how Draft One could be used.

This included:

• Foundational policies and data governance standards

• Clearly defined non-negotiables

• Contract and enterprise agreement scrutiny

• Rules around where resident data can live and how it can be used

• Compliance with records retention law

• Strict human review requirements for AI-generated content

Setting up this foundation was a critical part of why the project continues to succeed a year later. The Town of Gilbert’s technology department had the bandwidth to closely examine and evaluate these factors, and monitor them on an ongoing basis. With a dedicated department for technology projects like these, other cities can also have an open door for idea contributions and have a team that’s ready to implement those with potential. 

However, one of the most important takeaways from Gilbert’s approach is that innovation is not “owned” by a single department. While the Town has built a strong foundation through its technology office, the responsibility for testing and adoption still sits with the departments closest to the work.

As Klinefelter explained, “That’s a hallmark of our approach, that the end users really should co-own or fully own the pilot.” Gilbert has found that there is a much greater chance of technology adoption when the ownership is dispersed, and doesn’t rest solely with his team.

By putting the pilot in the hands of the police department, Gilbert ensured that feedback was grounded in a real-world use case and that officers had a direct role in shaping how the technology fit into their workflows. 

Successful Technology Adoption Starts Before Implementation

The Town of Gilbert’s implementation of Draft One in its police force is just one example of Arizona cities using AI and other technology tools to improve operations. When we learn from each other, all Arizona communities can strengthen how we serve residents and boost operational efficiency.

This success helps illustrate the potential of AI-enabled tools for Arizona cities and how to go about successfully integrating technology. With a clear strategy, support from an emerging technology program, and a commitment to fostering an innovation pipeline, adopting new helpful tools becomes a more seamless process for local government organizations.

For cities that feel overwhelmed in the technology department due to immediate issues they’re dealing with, dedicating a budget to partner with technology consulting experts like The Connective, or creating an in-house emerging technology group, can help open the door to more innovation and technology improvements for a city.