Police Detectives

Record progress of investigation, maintain informational files on suspects, and submit reports to commanding officer or magistrate to authorize warrants.

AI: Fully automatable - Recording case progress, maintaining suspect files, and drafting reports are routine, structured tasks that AI can fully automate and produce submissions for human review.

Prepare charges or responses to charges, or information for court cases, according to formalized procedures.

AI: Fully automatable - Preparing charges or responses follows formalized templates and rules that AI can generate from structured facts, producing draft filings ready for legal review.

Obtain summary of incident from officer in charge at crime scene, taking care to avoid disturbing evidence.

AI: Fully automatable - Given recordings or live audio/text input, AI can transcribe, summarize, and generate structured incident summaries and follow‑up questions without disturbing evidence, effectively automating that information‑gathering task.

Examine records and governmental agency files to find identifying data about suspects.

AI: Fully automatable - AI systems can rapidly search, link, and extract identifying information across digital government records and databases (subject to access and legal constraints), effectively automating this analytic task.

Provide information to lab personnel concerning the source of an item of evidence and tests to be performed.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can analyze evidence metadata, case context, and lab capabilities to recommend tests and generate the necessary communication and documentation for lab personnel, effectively automating this informational handoff.

Analyze completed police reports to determine what additional information and investigative work is needed.

AI: Fully automatable - NLP and case‑analysis models can read completed reports, identify missing facts or leads, and propose targeted investigative steps, effectively automating the determination of additional information and work needed.

Notify command of situation and request assistance.

AI: Fully automatable - AI systems can automatically detect incidents, notify command, request assistance, and log communications in real time using existing dispatch and alerting integrations.

Notify, or request notification of, medical examiner or district attorney representative.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can automatically generate and send secure notifications to medical examiners or district attorney representatives following protocols and case triggers.

Note relevant details upon arrival at scene, such as time of day and weather conditions.

AI: Fully automatable - AI and integrated sensors can automatically log arrival time, lighting, and weather conditions and append them to incident reports immediately.

Check victims for signs of life, such as breathing and pulse.

AI: Partial - Assessing breathing and pulse requires physical contact and immediate medical judgment; AI can assist via sensors or guidance but cannot fully perform hands-on checks.

Obtain facts or statements from complainants, witnesses, and accused persons and record interviews, using recording device.

AI: Partial - AI can conduct, record, and transcribe structured interviews and elicit statements, but lacks full human rapport, nuanced judgment, and legal-evidentiary contextualization for all interviews.

Secure deceased body and obtain evidence from it, preventing bystanders from tampering with it prior to medical examiner's arrival.

AI: Partial - Securing a body and crime scene requires physical crowd control and chain-of-custody actions that AI can support with sensors and guidance but cannot directly perform.

Obtain evidence from suspects.

AI: Partial - Obtaining physical evidence from suspects typically requires searches and seizures by officers; AI can assist (e.g., digital forensics, interview prompting) but cannot fully execute physical evidence collection.

Examine crime scenes to obtain clues and evidence, such as loose hairs, fibers, clothing, or weapons.

AI: Partial - AI can assist by identifying likely clues from images, suggesting search patterns, and guiding human collectors, but cannot reliably perform hands‑on physical evidence collection and nuanced scene interpretation on its own as of 2025.

Preserve, process, and analyze items of evidence obtained from crime scenes and suspects, placing them in proper containers and destroying evidence no longer needed.

AI: Partial - AI can support preservation and analysis through chain‑of‑custody tracking, evidence labeling, and lab analysis recommendations, but physical packaging, secure storage, and legally compliant destruction remain human/legal responsibilities.

Note, mark, and photograph location of objects found, such as footprints, tire tracks, bullets and bloodstains, and take measurements of the scene.

AI: Partial - AI can analyze photos to note and annotate locations and compute measurements from images, but physically marking scene items and reliably taking all on‑site measurements without robotic hardware requires human action.

Take photographs from all angles of relevant parts of a crime scene, including entrance and exit routes and streets and intersections.

AI: Partial - AI can plan shots, control cameras or drones where available, and assess photographic completeness, but routine physical capture from every required angle typically still depends on human operators or specialized hardware deployment.

Videotape scenes where possible, including collection of evidence, examination of victim at scene, and defendants and witnesses.

AI: Partial - AI can direct and automate video capture workflows and analyze recorded footage, but actual videotaping on scene depends on human operators or specialized robotic/camera systems that are not universally autonomous.

Prepare and serve search and arrest warrants.

AI: Partial - AI can draft and populate warrant documents and supporting probable-cause narratives but cannot lawfully execute or physically serve warrants.

Question individuals or observe persons and establishments to confirm information given to patrol officers.

AI: Partial - AI can conduct scripted interviews and analyze video/data to corroborate information but lacks full human judgment, legal authority, and nuanced interrogation skills.

Participate or assist in raids and arrests.

AI: Partial - AI can support planning, intelligence, and remote sensor/drone feeds for raids and arrests but cannot physically participate or apply lawful use-of-force.

Organize scene search, assigning specific tasks and areas of search to individual officers and obtaining adequate lighting as necessary.

AI: Partial - AI can generate optimized search assignments and lighting requests and coordinate resources, but cannot physically set up lighting or perform on-the-ground task enforcement without human execution.

Summon medical help for injured individuals and alert medical personnel to take statements from them.

AI: Partial - AI can automatically summon EMS and notify medical personnel and record requests, but cannot perform medical triage or manage legal/ethical aspects of obtaining statements without human oversight.

Observe and photograph narcotic purchase transactions to compile evidence and protect undercover investigators.

AI: Partial - AI-enabled cameras and analytics can observe and document transactions and help protect personnel, but covert operations and immediate safety/judgment calls remain human responsibilities.

Block or rope off scene and check perimeter to ensure that entire scene is secured.

AI: Partial - AI can recommend perimeter boundaries, control remote barriers, and monitor camera/sensor coverage but cannot physically rope off or enforce a secured scene without human officers.

Maintain surveillance of establishments to obtain identifying information on suspects.

AI: Partial - AI can perform continuous video analytics and flag identifying information on suspects, but accuracy, legal constraints, and need for human verification prevent full automation.

Monitor conditions of victims who are unconscious so that arrangements can be made to take statements if consciousness is regained.

AI: Partial - AI can monitor vital signs and generate alerts or reminders to arrange statements, but cannot fully perform hands-on medical observation or make final legal/ethical decisions about interviewing.

Coordinate with outside agencies and serve on interagency task forces to combat specific types of crime.

AI: Partial - AI can facilitate coordination by automating information sharing, scheduling, and analytic products for task forces, but it cannot replace human leadership, negotiation, and interagency relationship-building.

Schedule polygraph tests for consenting parties and record results of test interpretations for presentation with findings.

AI: Partial - AI can fully automate scheduling and record and summarize polygraph data, but authoritative interpretation, consent verification, and legal handling still require human oversight and expert judgment.

Provide testimony as a witness in court.

AI: Not automatable - AI cannot act as a human witness in court or provide admissible live testimony in place of a human witness.

Secure persons at scene, keeping witnesses from conversing or leaving the scene before investigators arrive.

AI: Not automatable - Securing, controlling, and legally detaining persons at a scene requires physical presence, authority, and judgment that AI cannot perform autonomously as of 2025.