A smarter front door to policing

South Yorkshire Police introduced Bobbi as the next step in evolving how people access policing support. By resolving more everyday enquiries digitally, providing trusted guidance around the clock and connecting seamlessly with human support, the force is creating a public contact experience built around what people need.

Not every contact needs the same response

South Yorkshire Police serves around 1.4 million people, who contact the force for everything from emergencies to everyday questions. But not every call is about a new crime or an incident in progress. Some people are looking for advice, reporting something another organisation is responsible for or simply trying to find the right service. The force wanted to give them another way to find trusted information online, helping contact centre teams focus their time on serious or complex situations where their skills and experience are needed.

Enter Bobbi. Built on the Agentforce platform and powered by Salesforce, the virtual assistant is designed specifically for public contact in policing. Grounded in information approved by the force, Bobbi understands questions asked in everyday language and responds 24/7. Acting as an extension of the control room team, it can resolve routine enquiries digitally, keeping people available for situations that call for experience, empathy and judgement. The focus is deliberately on repeatable enquiries suited to a safe digital response, rather than trying to automate every type of public contact.

Picture someone looking for policing advice late at night. Rather than waiting until morning or calling the control room, they can ask Bobbi there and then. If the answer sits within the force's approved knowledge, they can get help on the spot. If the enquiry needs a person, the conversation transfers through DigiDesk to the control room team, without sending them elsewhere or making them start again. And the context gathered through the conversation goes with it, helping the team understand what's happened before they step in. 

Bobbi handles what it can. People step in when they should.

For South Yorkshire Police, Bobbi builds on a wider programme of digital change that includes our work to improve the victim journey. This time, the focus is on the front door to policing.

“Working with Infomentum on this journey to Bobbi implementation has been great.  Their Project Managers and SMEs have been extremely helpful and made themselves available whenever we needed their support.  Shaha and Charlie’s support has been invaluable and I would welcome the opportunity to work with them again.”
Gary Slatter, Communications Manager at  South Yorkshire Police

Momentum gained

With Bobbi live, South Yorkshire Police has more visibility and control over how AI supports public contact. Enhanced supervisor controls mean teams can monitor conversations and step in when human judgement is needed, while reporting shows how people are using the service and where demand is emerging. Interactions and escalations are also captured within Salesforce, giving teams a record they can review as they continue to monitor and refine the service.
And that momentum extends beyond South Yorkshire. Bobbi is already supporting public contact across a growing community of UK police forces.

Thames Valley Police · Hampshire Police & Isle of Wight Constabulary · Humberside Police · Merseyside Police · Essex Police · Staffordshire Police · Lancashire Constabulary

With every deployment, that shared experience grows, from architecture and testing through to governance and escalation, giving other forces a stronger foundation to build from.

While each service is adapted around local communities and ways of working, the ambition remains the same: help people reach the right support sooner and give police teams more capacity for the conversations that need them.

Early signs of adoption

Since going live, Bobbi has already been handling around 40 conversations a day across South Yorkshire, showing how agentic technology is beginning to play a role in everyday public contact. That number is expected to grow as the service becomes more established and more people discover this new way to access support.

These early interactions are also helping the force understand which enquiries people are bringing to Bobbi, how successfully they're being handled digitally and where there may be opportunities to expand its capabilities.  

Looking ahead

For South Yorkshire Police, going live with Bobbi isn't the finish line. Every conversation offers a better understanding of what people need from digital policing, creating opportunities to refine the experience and resolve more demand in the right place.

With the foundations now in place, the force has an opportunity to build on what's already been introduced and explore how agentic technology could support more of its public contact needs.