AI-written reports

Forbes published an investigation based on public records showing Axon’s Draft One and Form One AI police report tools generate errors: incorrect names, wrong officer locations, and hallucinated details. Officers in Lafayette, Indiana reported the tool increased report completion time, with one officer noting a 30-second form took three minutes to edit. The King County, Washington prosecutor’s office declined to accept AI-generated reports in 2024 because of hallucinations. Axon said the tools are in early access and officers retain control.

On October 10, 2025 California’s governor signed Senate Bill 524, which requires police officers to disclose when generative AI tools such as Axon’s Draft One were used to write a report. The disclosure must appear at the bottom of each page of the report. Departments must preserve audit trails, including the original AI-generated draft and the body-camera footage or audio that informed it, so that judges, defense attorneys and auditors can see which portions were written by the officer and which by the software. The law bars vendors from selling or sharing the information agencies provide to the AI. It took effect January 1, 2026. By design, Draft One does not retain an edit log showing who wrote what.

On July 10, 2025 the Electronic Frontier Foundation published an investigation concluding that Axon’s Draft One, which drafts police reports from body-camera audio, is designed in a way that frustrates audits. Reviewing police reports, emails, procurement documents, department policies, software settings and Axon’s own manuals and marketing, EFF found it is often impossible to tell which parts of a report were generated by AI and which were written by an officer, because Draft One does not retain the initial AI-generated draft. Administrators cannot produce a list of all Draft One activity across a department; they can only inspect an individual officer’s audit log or a single evidence item. An Axon representative told one agency there is no filter for Draft One reports. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which requires a disclosure on each report, isolated more than 3,000 Draft One reports generated between December 2024 and March 2025.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a guide for journalists, advocates, and community members on obtaining records about Axon’s Draft One, an AI system that generates police report narratives from body-worn camera audio. The guide includes sample public records request language for reports, audit logs, settings, procurement documents, training materials, evaluations, and communications with Axon.

In July 2025, the district attorney’s office in King County, Washington, banned AI-generated police reports, citing ‘legitimate concerns about some of the products on the market now.’ The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s investigation found that Axon’s Draft One tool does not retain drafts or records of AI use, making reports difficult to audit. The EFF said the tool ‘seems deliberately designed to avoid audits that could provide any accountability to the public.’

In September 2024, the King County, Washington, prosecutor’s office said it would not accept police reports drafted with the help of AI, after local law enforcement agencies expressed interest in using Axon’s Draft One tool. The office said using the tool would “likely result in many of your officers approving Axon drafted narratives with unintentional errors in them,” according to an email to police chiefs. Axon said it is committed to collaboration with police agencies, prosecutors, and other stakeholders to guide the responsible evolution of Draft One.

In September 2024, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Washington told police chiefs it would not accept police narratives produced with the assistance of generative AI, including Axon’s Draft One and ChatGPT. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Daniel J. Clark wrote that reports written with AI assistance would be rejected because of the possibility of errors, citing one otherwise excellent report that referred to an officer who was not at the scene. The memo said such products were generally not compliant with Criminal Justice Information Services requirements for now. The office said it expected AI would eventually assist prosecutors in time-saving ways but was not ready to accept AI-assisted reports.

On May 28, 2024, Axon told Lafayette, Indiana police that Draft One AI reports would include a disclosure header by default, but that it could be easily turned off. Emails obtained via public records request show the department then disabled the disclosure, making it impossible to independently identify AI-written reports. Axon’s software also does not track which portions of reports were AI-generated. Captain Brian Gossard wrote in July 2024 that he could “almost guarantee” AI reports have been used in plea deals.