From Innovation to Impact: Key Takeaways from NENA

NENA 2025 in Long Beach, CA brought together emergency communications professionals from across the country. This unforgettable conference featured insightful speakers, generous sponsors and exciting exhibitors.

Conference sessions focused on the fast‑evolving landscape of emergency communications and how your agency can keep pace. CentralSquare was honored to be on site, showcasing four solutions designed to modernize public safety agencies:

• Vertex NG911: A next‑generation 911 platform that exceeds NG911 and NENAi3 protocols, supports multimedia communication (voice, text, video), and equips call-takers with the tools to manage incidents more efficiently.
• Public Safety Suite: A unified system integrating 911, CAD, RMS, Mobile and Jail operations. It enables smarter coordination across agencies, disciplines and jurisdictions.
• Unify: A CAD‑to‑CAD network offering “public safety without borders.” It reduces voice calls between agencies and connects diverse CAD systems (including non‑PSAP partners) for faster emergency response.
• Centerline AI: An AI suite that automates routine administrative tasks, saving officers up to 40 hours per month and allowing them to focus on serving their communities.

The NENA conference focused on key topics like AI innovation, mental health and wellness, and accessibility in emergency communications. Keep reading to learn how your agency can take the next step in these critical areas.

Key Topics

AI Tools

AI was a standout theme at NENA 2025 – specifically, how it’s shaping the future of emergency communications. From training to call handling, AI’s role is quickly expanding.

One of the biggest takeaways was how AI helps dispatchers process calls faster and with less stress. From real-time translation to voice analysis, AI tools are improving accuracy while reducing cognitive load. Picture-to-text capabilities are helping dispatchers avoid exposure to graphic images to mitigate trauma. And AI-powered agents are now handling non-emergency calls, freeing staff to focus on life-saving situations.

Training is also being transformed. AI-powered QA and training simulators are helping agencies deliver smarter and more consistent instruction.

At the conference, CentralSquare shared more about Centerline AI: a solution designed to help officers reclaim time and reduce burnout. Unlike basic AI tools, Centerline supports audio transcription, report generation, voice dictation, task automation, case analytics and form management.

Centerline AI saves the average officer 40 hours per month in administrative work. For every 5 users, it’s like adding a full-time team member. And agencies can go live in just 24 hours.

At NENA 2025, the message was clear: AI isn’t just a trend. It’s the next generation of public safety – designed to support (not replace) trained professionals.

Mental Health and Wellness

Mental health and wellness took center stage at the conference, highlighting the urgent need to support 911 professionals who face high-stress situations.

Dispatchers are the unseen front line of public safety. They take high-stakes calls and coordinate emergency responses with composure. But behind the calm voice is someone regularly exposed to trauma: child endangerment, active shootings, fatal accidents, etc. Over time, these stressors can lead to anxiety, depression and PTSD.

PTSD doesn’t always come from one traumatic event. Often, it’s accumulated over years of exposure. Symptoms like nightmares, migraines, emotional numbness and flashbacks can affect every part of a dispatcher’s life, not just her job performance.

Conference speakers shared how agencies can do more. Dispatchers need tools and support systems to help them cope with stress and build resilience. Wellness programs, mental health training and peer support networks were discussed, along with promising applications of AI to help reduce cognitive load and prevent burnout (like those highlighted above).

As we saw at NENA 2025, small gestures can go a long way. Therapy dogs roamed the conference, offering comfort and reminding everyone that caring for public safety starts with caring for the people behind the headset.

Enhancing Accessibility

Accessibility was another key focus at NENA 2025, where agencies explored how to make 911 services more inclusive for all communities. CentralSquare’s Josh Nilson led a powerful session titled, NG911 for the Hard of Hearing and Foreign Language Speakers.

In the US, over 11 million people are deaf or hard of hearing, and almost 26 million aren’t proficient in English. These groups often face challenges during emergency calls.

CentralSquare’s Vertex platform directly addresses these challenges with built-in accessibility features. Text-to-911 allows hard-of-hearing individuals to communicate through real-time text (RTT), a major upgrade from outdated TTY systems. AI-powered audio transcription separates caller and dispatcher dialogue into distinct written transcripts. Supervisors can then search transcripts, detect keywords, monitor calls live and use APIs to integrate records with other systems.

Vertex also offers multi-language translation, enabling live two-way communication across 170+ languages. The system retains both original and translated messages, simplifying dispatcher workflows without sacrificing clarity.

By integrating these features into Next Generation 911 systems, CentralSquare is helping PSAPs better serve diverse communities. That way, no voice goes unheard in an emergency.

Strategic Partners at NENA

CentralSquare is proud to partner with RapidSOS and Prepared 911 to enhance emergency response through cutting-edge, data-driven tech. These companies also attended NENA 2025.

RapidSOS powers the world’s first intelligent safety platform. It securely connects life-saving data from over 500 million devices, apps and sensors to 911 centers and field responders. This real-time data improves situational awareness, call accuracy and decision-making in the field. Thanks to the integration between CentralSquare and RapidSOS, customers will have access to life-saving data for better response strategies.

Prepared 911 is an assistive platform designed to streamline 911 call handling. It combines multiple data sources to help telecommunicators process calls faster and more accurately. CentralSquare customers can purchase Prepared 911 as a standalone tool or integrate it with Vertex NG911, CAD and other CentralSquare public safety solutions.

Together, these strategic partnerships give agencies the tools to reduce response times, improve outcomes and better serve their communities.

How to Get Started

We had a great time connecting with customers and industry partners at NENA 2025. From sharing new innovations to hearing how agencies are navigating modern challenges, the conversations were energizing and insightful. The future of emergency communications is evolving quickly, and CentralSquare is proud to be leading the way.

Are you ready to empower your staff, simplify operations and improve response times? Book a demo today for Centerline AI or our one-stop Public Safety Suite. With these tools working for you, your agency can connect disparate systems, reduce the administrative workload on officers, protect dispatchers from burnout, and so much more.