In this interview with TechBullion, Matt Sloane, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Skyfire AI, explores the transformative role of AI in drone technology, especially for emergency response and public safety. Sloane explains how AI enhances the capability of drones by automating complex flight and monitoring tasks, allowing operators to focus on managing systems. This shift enables more advanced operations, such as multi-drone search and rescue missions, which significantly boost efficiency and response times.
Skyfire AI’s merger with Echelon AI strengthens its technology portfolio, with applications ranging from assisting police in locating stolen vehicles to providing critical support in natural disasters, as seen in recent hurricanes. The company’s drones have proven invaluable for assessing damage, locating missing persons, and clearing routes for emergency services. Sloane also shares the company’s commitment to public safety innovation in cities like Huntsville, where drone programs and AI are increasingly integrated into real-time crime monitoring.
Skyfire AI is also pioneering “swarm technology” to improve operational efficiency with multiple drones working in coordination, although human oversight remains integral to all AI-driven operations. Sloane emphasizes that while drones and AI facilitate faster, more informed decision-making, humans remain the ultimate decision-makers. Looking ahead, Skyfire AI is focusing on incremental hardware improvements and significant advancements in AI software and autonomy to shape the future of public safety. The company remains dedicated to ethical considerations, working alongside organizations like the ACLU to ensure privacy and uphold community trust in these rapidly evolving technologies.
Please tell us more about yourself?
My name is Matt Sloane, and I am the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer for Skyfire AI. I fly drones and small airplanes, I live in Huntsville, Alabama with my wife Amanda, 10 year old son Brendan and 6 year old daughter Emerie.
SkyfireAI emphasizes the integration of AI into drone technology. How is artificial intelligence transforming the way drones are used in emergency response, and what key challenges does AI help overcome in these high-stakes environments?
Flying drones, just like flying small airplanes requires a lot of attention to detail – making sure the airspace is clear, making sure the weather is above a certain threshold, monitoring for other aircraft. But a pilot on a commercial airliner isn’t doing a lot of moving the flight stick around, they’re more of a systems manager. That’s what we’re aiming to do with our AI technology is leave the nitty gritty part of flying to the AI so the pilot can be monitoring the overall system.
Once we’re able to do that successfully, that paves the way for advanced uses of drones like using more than one to accomplish a mission. Imagine a search and rescue scenario where you could have 4 drones searching a single area – divide and conquer – and the pilot could be overseeing. We’ll always have a “human in the loop” but the more flexible we can make that person, the more they can do with the technology.
How does the merger between Skyfire Consulting and Echelon AI enhance the overall capabilities of your drone technology, particularly for first responders and defense clients? Can you share a specific example of how this synergy will work in real-world situations?
Absolutely! One of the easiest examples to think about is the idea of a stolen car. We know as soon as it gets reported the color make and model of the car, and we can task a drone with searching for it. But right now, we would do it in a very analog way. Go out, fly up and down possible routes, manually search the video for what we’re looking for. Imagine if you could tell the drone to go look for a black Ford F150 and it would go do it, while you monitored the flight.
Then if you found it, and somebody took off, rather than chasing them on the ground, you could send a drone to follow it… Or multiple drones that take over from one another as the batteries get low. Those are all possible with AI technology, and better yet, it’s keeping police officers safer by not asking them to engage in a high-speed chase.
SkyfireAI’s technology is positioned to play a crucial role in natural disasters and search and rescue operations. Can you share a story or case study where your drones made a critical difference in a real-life emergency?
Yes, and it’s a very recent one – Hurricane Helene. We had our crews down in Tallahassee during landfall, and then they quickly shifted up to North Carolina when it became clear that’s where alot of the real destruction was happening.
We were able to support both public safety as well as private companies who were looking to help find lost people, assess the damage across the region, and even help make sure certain roads were clear so they could get medical support to critical patients.
Especially in situations like in Asheville, where roads were washed out and rescue or supply vehicles just cant get through, drones can be an invaluable resource for assessment and moving supplies.
For communities like Huntsville, how do you see SkyfireAI’s advancements directly impacting public safety and daily life? What benefits can local first responders and defense agencies expect from these innovations?
Huntsville is one of the most tech-forward cities I’ve ever seen, but there is still a lot that we can do. The city has a very robust “real time crime center” where they can monitor situations around the city as they’re happening, and they also have a very robust drone program.
We’re excited about helping to bring more autonomy to the process, because there are just never enough people – in any city – to do everything that needs to be done.
AI has come so far in the past several years, and it can handle alot of the more mundane tasks like pouring through hours of video – and putting that technology on drones just makes it exponentially more useful.
One of SkyfireAI’s promises is improving real-time communication between multiple drones during missions. How does this capability enhance operational efficiency, and can you give an example of a successful coordinated mission that relied on this technology?
What you’re talking about here is swarm technology, and swarm is still very much in its infancy, at least in the public sector. There’s more of it going on in defense right now, but alot of what we’re doing there, we can’t talk about.
That said, the real-world efficiency of having multiple drones is where this gets really exciting. Swarm has a bad connotation, makes you think of bees coming after you, but in fact, imagine you were lost in the woods, and were hoping people were coming to rescue you. Having multiple drones simultaneously working to search an area is infinitely more efficient, especially when they can actually evaluate the video to help find you.
As AI takes a more prominent role in SkyfireAI’s drone operations, how do you balance the automation provided by AI with human decision-making, particularly in critical and life-saving missions?
There will always be humans in the loop, that’s just a necessity from a regulatory standpoint, and it’s also just a good idea. The purpose of the AI is not to have it make decisions, it’s to get information to human decision makers more quickly.
Let’s say an armed suspect runs out the back door when police come knocking, and that person heads toward school full of kids. As the responding officers, wouldn’t it be helpful to know there was a school just 500 yards across the back yard? The technology can tell you that, and then you have to make the decision about what to do about it. But without the technology assist, it may be a few minutes until you realize that.
So the tech just enables the humans to make better and faster decisions.
The demand for advanced drone technology in public safety has been rising. What are some of the emerging trends in drone usage that SkyfireAI is addressing, and how is your company preparing to meet the growing needs of crisis management?
Drones are all the rage in public safety right now, and we’re proud to have been a big reason for that! Skyfire has worked with over 1000 public safety agencies over the last ten years on setting up these programs.
But the “Drone as First Responder” or DFR mission is one that has emerged in the last few years. That’s where we fly drones directly from a centralized rooftop directly to the location of a 911 call, without someone having to drive it there. So you get response times of 3 minutes or less.
This concept started in 2018 in Chula Vista, California, and we are proud to have worked with Chula Vista Police to get it up and running. Since then about 30 other agencies are operating “DFR” style programs, and we’ve worked with over half of them.
We think this is the way of the future, and are working directly to support the development of DFR. We have people stationed on rooftops supporting those operations, we’re partnering with drone manufacturers to help make better drones and accessories for that mission, and our software (along with other software partners) are focused on helping support that mission.
Looking ahead, how do you envision the future of public safety operations evolving with the technology that SkyfireAI is developing? What innovations are on the horizon that you think will become game changers in the next 5-10 years?
The drones themselves are actually the least important part of the equation. They’ll get a little smaller, a little faster, have a little bit better cameras and fly a little bit longer – but the gains will be incremental. The HUGE gains will come in the way of software and autonomy.
The drone is only as good as the camera that’s on it, and the camera is only as good as the software you use to process it – but you can’t do one piece without the other. It’s a whole ecosystem, and that’s why we’re working so closely with partners to help bring the best of each of those categories together into an ecosystem.
SkyfireAI is committed to innovation and community safety. Can you elaborate on how your team ensures that the rapid technological advancements align with ethical considerations and long-term benefits for both local and global communities?
This is one of THE most important things to consider. We don’t live in a war zone, and we’re a country of people that pride ourselves on having individual freedoms. Our technology is a tool in the toolbox, and it’s only employed when agencies get a call for help. If you call 911 and ask for officers or ambulances or fire trucks to come, those agencies might bring drones to help. So we’ve worked closely with groups like the ACLU to make sure our clients aren’t infringing on peoples’ privacy.
As far as fears about AI, alot of that is hype right now, but the concerns are real, and we take that very seriously as well. Our technologists are members of a lot of professional organizations that are setting standards around the ethical use of AI, and it’s something we support at the core of what we do.
Our entire goal as a company is to help people, so anything that runs afoul of that is not something we’re interested in being a part of.
