Gun detection AI technology company uses Disney to successfully persuade New York

When New York City Mayor Eric Adams first met with representatives from Evolv, the gun-detection AI company, he was given a list of locations where the scanner could be used, including hospitals, schools, and Times Square. University and Port Authority Bus Terminal. According to emails obtained by Wired, what appears to have convinced Adams was Evolv’s revelation of another major client: Disney.

“As I mentioned, Linda Reid, Vice President of Security for Walt Disney World (Florida) has known us since 2014 and deployed many of our systems at the Parks and Disney Springs,” co-founder Evolv Anil Chitkara wrote in an email to Adams’ office on February 7, 2022. “They were successful in testing weapons with Evolv Express… There might be some interesting parallels in how he thinks about people’s role in security.”

New York City actually tested Evolv’s scanners at a hospital in the Bronx and outside the entrance to City Hall later that year. Although the results of both tests were disappointing — the machines misreported more than 85 percent of the time at a Bronx hospital — Adams announced that the city will test Evolv’s gun detectors on the subway at the end of the day. this year.

Importantly, Evolv’s pitch to Adams did not include subways as a potential use case for the sensors. In fact, in a recent call with investors, Evolv CEO Peter George said that the detectors are not directed at public transportation, Wired reports.

We reached out to Adams’ office to ask why the mayor decided to test subway scanners and what similarities, if any, he sees between Disney theme parks and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Urban Transportation – we will update when we hear back. One similarity may be the amount of people traveling. In a June 2020 interview with Attractions Magazine , Evolv co-founder Mike Ellenbogan said that the company’s Evolv Express units can scan between 1,800 and 3,600 visitors per hour depending on model. The interview was published shortly after Six Flags announced it had ordered 37 units for several of its parks nationwide.

A month later, Disney blog The Laughing Place reported that Disney was testing an Evolv Express system at Disney Springs, a type of outdoor shopping mall outside of Orlando, Florida. Evolv scanners were installed at several Disney park entrances in Florida – Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom – later that year, according to posts on the WDW Magic forum. Disney has steadily expanded the use of Evolv scanners since then.

Disney’s flagship park, Magic Kingdom, will average more than 46,000 guests per day in 2022, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Meanwhile, the New York City subway system, on average, had more than 3.1 million riders on a weekday in 2022. Perhaps this isn’t a perfect analogy after all.