PSST Tool Brings AI Transcription to Police Scanners (2026)
On August 3, 2026, the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the nonprofit newsroom Open Vallejo announced they are building the Public Safety Scanner Tool (PSST), a free AI copilot that monitors police scanner feeds around the clock and alerts journalists the moment serious dispatch traffic breaks. The project signals that scanner audio is not just surviving the era of encryption but is being upgraded — a preview of the AI transcription and analysis tools that are coming to public-safety listening in 2026 and beyond.
PSST is being built by the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) and Open Vallejo. When the tool detects tones it considers urgent, it sends a Slack or email alert to the newsroom with a preliminary transcript and a link to the audio. It is designed to work with Broadcastify feeds, physical scanners, and other online scanner sources, meaning it was built to be feed-agnostic from day one.
What PSST Does for Journalists
PSST runs around the clock and listens for the kind of dispatch traffic that matters to a newsroom: the tones and codes that mark a serious incident rather than routine patrol chatter. When it hears one, it drops an alert with a working transcript so a reporter can judge whether the call is worth chasing before the shift is over.
- 24/7 monitoring of scanner feeds
- Real-time alerts delivered to Slack or email
- Preliminary transcript of the urgent traffic
- Audio link back to the original transmission
A Tool Born From Real Reporting
Open Vallejo has run a scanner for most of its six years as a newsroom, and the team says scanner audio has launched multiple front-page investigations. The tool already runs inside Open Vallejo’s own newsroom today. According to the project announcement, beta testing is starting with more than ten partner newsrooms, and the free alerts and transcription phase is slated for a public launch this fall.
After that initial phase, PSST is expected to add LLM-powered pattern analysis that looks at neighborhoods, call types, and response times across the traffic it captures — turning a live feed into something closer to a public-data resource.
Who Is Paying for It
The project is being funded with seed money from the Lenfest Institute, and Stanford’s Big Local News will host and maintain the tool free of charge for newsrooms after launch. That structure matters: because the tool is free and independently hosted, smaller local outlets — the ones most affected by shrinking newsrooms and rising encryption — can use it without a subscription budget.
Why Encryption Makes This Significant
The project is explicitly framed as a response to the wave of police radio encryption that has swept departments since 2020 and cut the press off from live dispatch. The announcement notes that the California Highway Patrol and dozens of California agencies have kept their dispatch in the clear, which is exactly the kind of traffic PSST is built to watch. For newsrooms that have lost access to their local department’s talkgroups, the tool can still extract accountability value from the agencies that remain open.
What This Means for Scanner Listeners
For hobbyists and everyday listeners, PSST is a useful window into where the scanning community is headed. The transcription and pattern-analysis features are being developed first for newsrooms, but they are the same capabilities consumers are beginning to see in scanner apps and tools. As AI moves into the hobby, the lesson from this project is clear: real-time, well-transcribed scanner audio is increasingly valuable — precisely because encryption is making it rarer.
It also underlines a point this blog has returned to often: when agencies encrypt, listeners lose more than a hobby. They lose a shared, near-real-time picture of what is happening in their community. Tools that keep that picture alive — even on a delayed or curated basis — are worth paying attention to.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is PSST in the police scanner world?
PSST (Public Safety Scanner Tool) is a free newsroom tool built by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and Open Vallejo that monitors scanner feeds around the clock and sends journalists a Slack or email alert with a transcript and audio link when urgent dispatch traffic is detected.
When will the public PSST launch happen?
Beta testing is starting with more than ten partner newsrooms, and the free alerts and transcription phase is slated for a public launch this fall (2026), according to the RJI and Open Vallejo announcement.
Does PSST only work with Broadcastify?
No. PSST is designed to work with Broadcastify, physical scanners, and other online feeds, making it feed-agnostic for whichever sources a newsroom can still receive.
Is PSST connected to police radio encryption?
Yes. The project is framed as a direct response to the post-2020 wave of police radio encryption that cut press access, and it targets agencies like the California Highway Patrol that have kept dispatch in the clear.
Does PSST replace a human police scanner listener?
No. It is an alerting and transcription aid that helps journalists notice and judge urgent traffic faster. Open Vallejo notes that scanner audio has launched multiple front-page investigations and still relies on human judgment to pursue stories.
Will AI transcription like PSST reach everyday hobbyists?
The newsroom version is coming first, but the same transcription and pattern-analysis capabilities are already appearing in consumer scanner tools and apps, pointing toward a broader AI-assisted future for the hobby.
Bottom line: PSST is the clearest sign yet that police scanner audio remains a serious public-accountability tool — and that AI transcription and analysis are about to become a standard part of how newsrooms (and eventually listeners) follow dispatch traffic in real time.
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