From information to intelligence: The next frontier for emergency management

Over the past two years, the AFAC conference (Australian and New Zealand Council for Fire and Emergency Services) has reflected an industry in transition.

AFAC25 focused heavily on the systems, capabilities, and connections required to navigate an increasingly complex risk environment. Discussions ranged from national approaches to understanding risk through to digital transformation, emerging technologies, and the growing importance of collaboration across agencies, sectors, and jurisdictions. The conference theme, From local to global: leveraging systems, capability and connection, reflected a sector looking beyond individual organisations and towards the broader systems that shape resilience.

By AFAC26, many of those conversations had become more tangible. Artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, remote sensing and increasingly sophisticated decision-support tools were no longer future concepts. Agencies, researchers and practitioners were beginning to explore how these capabilities could influence the way emergency management is planned, coordinated and delivered.

What stood out across both years was not a sector searching for more information.

Emergency management now operates in an environment rich with data. Satellites monitor hazards in near real time. Drones provide detailed situational awareness. Communities contribute information continuously through digital platforms and local networks. Governments have invested heavily in hazard intelligence, climate science, modelling and forecasting. Across almost every hazard type, decision-makers have access to more information than at any previous point in history.

Yet the impacts of disasters continue to grow.

As a result, a different conversation is beginning to emerge across the sector. The issue is becoming less about how information is collected and more about how information contributes to a shared understanding of risk, informs decisions, and supports action across a system made up of many organisations, communities, and governments. The urgency of this shift is increasing as the scale, frequency and interconnected nature of disasters continue to test the assumptions and arrangements that have served the sector in the past.

Importantly, this builds directly on the lessons that have shaped emergency management reform over recent years. The emphasis on community resilience, local knowledge, partnerships and collaboration remains as important as ever. If anything, growing digital capability increases the value of these foundations because it creates new opportunities to connect expertise, information, and decision-making in ways that were previously difficult to achieve.

Much of the discussion at the recent AFAC conferences focused on what new technology makes possible. That reflects a genuine shift in the sector. Agencies now have access to increasingly sophisticated modelling, geospatial intelligence, remote sensing, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence tools, while ongoing investment in data and digital capability has created levels of visibility and situational awareness that would have been difficult to imagine a decade ago.

The result is a dramatic increase in both the volume and variety of information available to decision-makers. Data now arrives from operational systems, sensors, satellites, community reporting, social media, infrastructure networks, and a growing range of analytical platforms. Yet for many senior leaders in response and recovery, more data does not automatically create better decisions. Information is often fragmented across organisations, systems and jurisdictions, making it difficult to establish a clear and shared understanding of what is happening, what matters most and what should happen next.

This becomes particularly relevant when considering artificial intelligence. Much of the public discussion around AI has focused on capability, and understandably so. AI can synthesise large volumes of information at a speed that was previously impossible. It can identify relationships across datasets, surface emerging patterns, and help decision-makers navigate increasingly complex information environments. Its greatest value, however, may not be in generating more information, but in helping organisations translate disparate information into insight that can be used with confidence.

At Nous, we often describe this challenge as moving from data to decision-makers. Data alone rarely creates value. It must first be organised into information, interpreted in the context of a specific problem, translated into actionable insight, and ultimately presented in a form that supports a decision. Each step matters. When any part of that chain is weak, decision-makers can find themselves surrounded by information but lacking clarity.

For emergency management leaders, the most important questions therefore become practical ones. Can emerging risks be identified earlier and understood with greater confidence? Can decision-makers develop a clearer picture of how hazards might affect communities and essential services? Can operational teams spend less time assembling information and more time assessing options? Can agencies gain a better understanding of how risks interact and which interventions are likely to have the greatest effect?

These questions extend well beyond technology. They require organisations to think deliberately about the entire pathway from data to decision-making: how information is collected and shared, how it is interpreted and translated into insight, how confidence and trust are established, and how insights are presented in a way that supports action. Governance, operating models, workforce capability and decision-making processes all play a role. Without these foundations, even the most sophisticated technology can struggle to deliver value; with them, organisations are far better placed to turn growing volumes of information into decisions that improve outcomes.

Viewed through this lens, the next phase of innovation looks different from the last. Much of the past decade has been spent expanding access to data and exploring what new technologies can do. The opportunity now lies in strengthening the pathway from information to insight and from insight to action. The organisations likely to realise the greatest value will be those able to connect diverse sources of information, generate a clearer understanding of risk, and ensure that insights reach decision-makers at the moments they matter most.

This new value proposition of data to decision integration has implications for how resilience itself is understood.

Australia already possesses many of the foundations required to capitalise on this change. Emergency management institutions are mature. Relationships across jurisdictions are well established. Significant investments have been made in risk analysis, coordination mechanisms and resilience policy. There is little debate about the significance of governance, coordination and information-sharing arrangements that help connect these existing strengths.

Therefore, the opportunity is to strengthen the existing mechanisms that allow organisations to develop a shared understanding of risk and act collectively when circumstances require it. That includes the relationships built before an emergency occurs, the governance arrangements that support collaboration, and the information-sharing pathways that allow local insight, operational experience and analytical intelligence to inform decisions at the right time.

In many respects, this is where the discussions emerging from AFAC25 and AFAC26 converge. The sector's increasing investment in technology is not an end in itself. It creates the possibility of better coordination, better visibility of emerging risks and better-informed decisions. Realising that value depends on whether institutions can connect information, expertise and authority in ways that support collective action.

Looking back across both conferences, perhaps the clearest signal is that the foundations already exist. Emergency management is not short of expertise, capability or innovation. The real test of success will be when leaders spend less time making sense of information and more time acting on insight, with greater confidence in the decisions they make.

Get in touch to discuss how your organisation can turn growing volumes of data into actionable intelligence and better decisions.

Connect with Milly Bell and Matt McLaren on LinkedIn.