Trend report 2025: AI for safer cities – transforming safety operations and emergency response

As cities grow in size and complexity, public safety challenges are escalating. Cities and their emergency services face mounting pressure from climate disasters, cyber threats, health crises, and urban crime – all while working with limited resources and rising expectations. In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful tool to modernise public safety systems and transform emergency response.

From improving situational awareness in real time, to optimising deployment of frontline resources, to proactively mitigating risks before they escalate into emergencies, AI offers a powerful toolkit for modernising public safety. The technology’s ability to analyse vast amounts of data, detect hidden patterns, and generate predictive insights makes it especially suited to the high-stakes environment of emergency management.

The SmartCitiesWorld Trend Report on using AI to build safer cities, supported by Microsoft, aims to provide a roadmap for cities to transition from reactive response to proactive, collaborative, and equitable models of safety that deliver tangible benefits for both responders and residents.

The report offers valuable insights into AI’s applications in:

• Strengthening situational awareness and response times: how AI can enable faster, more informed first response by enhancing real-time visibility of incidents and streamlining interagency information flow
• Smarter resource allocation and operational resilience: how technologies like predictive analytics and digital twins can help organisations in critical areas like modelling risk and demand forecasting 
• Building resilient, resident-centred public safety ecosystems: how, by integrating AI-enhanced early warning systems, digital feedback platforms and incorporating strong governance, cities can scale pilot projects into accountable innovation across communities.

The AI for safer cities Trend Report also features city case studies from:

• Raleigh, California: using AI to manage traffic congestion and improve pedestrian safety amid rapid population growth
• San Francisco Police Department: how a custom app deployed across officers’ smartphones drastically reduced time required to update stolen vehicle records
• Oklahoma City Fire Department: using Microsoft technology reduced manual tasks by 40 per cent, giving firefighters and staff more time to focus on mission-critical activities
• North Wales Fire and Rescue Service: how, by embracing digital tools with expert guidance, the service has created a more connected, efficient, and secure organisation
• Alberta Wildfire, Canada: using an AI-powered predictive tool is enhancing daily resource planning and forecasting the likelihood of new fires by region.