Futuri, Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, and the University of Florida Launches First-Ever AI-driven Emergency Broadcast System to Deliver Life-Saving Disaster Communications

GAINESVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 18, 2024--

After another record-breaking Atlantic Hurricane Season Futuri, the global leader in AI technology for broadcast and public safety, in partnership with Florida’s Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) and the University of Florida, launches BEACON ™, a revolutionary AI-powered emergency communication system.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241218816107/en/

BEACON combines AI with the resiliency of broadcast technology to transform how emergency managers and first responders communicate with communities before, during, and after disasters. This marks the nation’s first 24/7 emergency preparedness network, providing critical, real-time information to keep citizens safe during emergencies.

“Futuri understands that AI can and should be a force for good,” said Daniel Anstandig, CEO and founder of Futuri. “Futuri, along with FDEM and the University of Florida, identified a gap in the timely delivery of critically important messaging to the public, providing the opportunity to introduce a new critical communication infrastructure to Florida’s – and other communities – hardest hit disaster areas. This first-of-its-kind communications tool automates important updates and advisories into radio broadcasts voiced by AI – getting potentially life-saving information to the community faster than ever before.”

A new era in emergency communication

BEACON - The Broadcast Emergency Alerts and Communications Operations Network – is the first system in the nation to seamlessly integrate AI technology with traditional broadcast channels, delivering information in real time to communities across Florida.

Unlike current systems, which rely on multiple channels with varying reach, BEACON ensures a unified, consistent message across all platforms. It automatically captures, prioritizes, and translates 100% of public safety information from authorized government sources, localizing this content based on geography and translating it into multiple languages, ensuring no community is left without vital information.

This critical information from state and local emergency managers is broadcast over traditional radio and TV airwaves and is also available via streaming and the free BEACON mobile app on iOS and Android. The system integrates directly into newsrooms and studios through a secure dashboard, allowing broadcasters across the state to access real-time content.

Around-the-clock emergency preparedness

BEACON’s dedicated radio and TV feeds broadcast easy-to-understand preparedness information, even when there are no active disasters. This includes actionable steps residents can take to protect themselves and their families before, during, and after an emergency. With the ability to reach vulnerable populations through resilient broadcast technology, BEACON is essential for emergency managers in today’s evolving media landscape.

“BEACON provides a 24/7/365 solution to all government agencies with this first-of-its-kind communications tool, automating important updates and advisories into radio broadcasts voiced by artificial intelligence and getting them out to the community faster than ever before,” said Kevin Guthrie, FDEM executive director.

How BEACON works:

Randy Wright, Director of Media Properties at the University of Florida, emphasized the partnership's significance, stating: "BEACON is the first 'always-on' alerting channel, developed at the University of Florida's public media WUFT-TV/FM, which is also home to the nationally recognized Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. BEACON provides hyper-local alerting solutions for every community in the state of Florida using broadcast infrastructure that is largely in place and already operational. BEACON utilizes artificial intelligence in an entirely new way for the public good, ensuring official alerts and advisories are available to the public 24/7/365 without the need for a cell phone, computer, or other device. Based in broadcast, the most resilient of media, BEACON is truly 'safety first, always on.'"

Nationwide rollout and accessibility

After stress testing the reliability of BEACON across every Florida media market, Futuri will extend its emergency system beyond the state, working directly with governors’ offices and emergency managers nationwide to implement BEACON and ensure local broadcasters have access to the content feed to deliver the necessary information to their communities.

“BEACON is revolutionary in emergency communication,” said Craig Fugate, a former FEMA administrator and FDEM executive director. “Its nationwide implementation offers an unprecedented opportunity to transform emergency messaging, with a unified platform for authorities to disseminate critical alerts and instructions in real time.”

Following a record-breaking hurricane season, officials urge all broadcasters and Florida residents to tune into the BEACON feed for critical emergency information. Feeds will be available for every major metropolitan area in Florida via the BEACON mobile app. All Florida residents are encouraged to download the app, available on iOS and Android in the Apple App Store and Google Play. Citizens in the Gainesville media market can also tune in to 89.1 FM for live BEACON broadcasts.

Click here to listen to BEACON audio as Hurricane Milton made landfall along Florida's West Coast.

About Futuri

Futuri, an AI technology company, helps media companies engage and monetize audiences to thrive in the AI era. Futuri’s suite of software leverages the company’s 20+ patents in artificial intelligence, broadcast technology, and public safety to predict audience behavior and deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time across all platforms – broadcast, podcast, streaming, and digital publishing. Futuri also serves government agencies with BEACON, the world’s first AI-powered emergency broadcast system. Over 7,000 broadcast and media companies worldwide, reaching audiences of 100 million per week, trust Futuri to grow and monetize their audiences and improve profitability with software such as TopLine, a sales intelligence system that expedites the sales cycle and grows revenue; and TopicPulse, an audience intelligence system that trends what audiences care about and forecasts what will go viral. For more information, please visit www.futurimedia.com.

Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, FDEM Executive Director Kevin Guthrie, Dean of UF College of Journalism and Communications Hub Brown, CEO of Futuri Daniel Anstandig, and the President of UF Kent Fuchs. Futuri, Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, and the University of Florida come together to announce the launch of the first-ever AI-driven emergency broadcast system, revolutionizing disaster communications to save lives at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Atlas Lab in Gainesville, FL on Wednesday, December 18, 2024. [Chris Watkins Photography]

What started with a friendship bracelet has resulted in wedding rings. Taylor Swift, the pop superstar, and Travis Kelce, the football champion, have officially tied the knot.

The couple, both 36, were married Friday at Madison Square Garden, according to Swift's publicist. The news was announced to the public with the marquee outside the Midtown Manhattan arena reading “JUST&T MARRIED."

It is the latest chapter in the couple’s love story, one that has spanned three years, two Super Bowls, an album announcement and the highest-grossing tour of all time.

Here is a look at some of the major events in their relationship.

It started, fittingly, with a friendship bracelet.

It was way back in July 2023 that Kelce attended Swift’s Eras concert at Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs play.

After, on his “New Heights” podcast with brother Jason Kelce, he professed to being disappointed — well, his word was “butthurt” — that he couldn’t meet Swift and present her with a bracelet with his phone number on it.

“She doesn’t meet anybody, or at least she didn’t want to meet me, so I took it personal,” he quipped. The podcast asked on Instagram: “Anyone know how to get a bracelet to @taylorswift13? … asking for a friend.”

But by that September, Kelce was hinting his efforts had achieved some success. He declined to elaborate amid speculation, telling an interviewer: “It is what it is.”

Clearly, though, something was happening. Soon, Kelce revealed he’d invited Swift to a game at Arrowhead. “I threw the ball in her court,” he said on another talk show.

Swift took Kelce up on his offer, appearing for all the world to see at the Chiefs-Bears game, cheering next to his mom, Donna Kelce. The two left the stadium in Kelce’s purple Chevelle “getaway car” — forgive the pun, but Kelce himself used it.

“Pretty ballsy,” Kelce said a few days later of Swift’s appearance, adding how much he loved seeing her cheer next to his mother.

It was the launch of a long series of appearances by Swift at Chiefs games. There was some online angst over whether Swift was distracting from football — while the NFL itself capitalized on her fandom. A day after the flashy Los Angeles premiere of her “Taylor Swift: Eras Tour” movie, she was back at Arrowhead.

And now it was time for Kelce to be the adoring fan. In November 2023, after a hiatus of two months, Swift brought her tour to Argentina, where she changed the lyrics of “Karma” to salute her beau. “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me,” she sang. Scott Swift, next to a beaming Kelce, applauded his daughter’s new flame.

When Time magazine announced its person of the year, few were surprised. In the Time interview, Swift spoke about her relationship.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Swift said, adding that they’d already been a couple before that first Chiefs game cameo.

Soon after, things were heating up on the football field — meaning the Chiefs were heading to the Super Bowl. At the AFC championship game, the couple made it clear they were fine with whatever attention was coming their way. In the middle of the field in Baltimore, after the Chiefs beat the Ravens, Swift and Kelce kissed. “I love you,” Kelce said. “So much it’s not funny.”

There was one game left. Fans wondered: How would Swift make it from her Tokyo shows to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas?

“This week is truly the best kind of chaos,” Swift posted on Instagram.

Chaos indeed. In one week of February 2024, Swift attended the Grammys in Los Angeles, jetted to Tokyo for four concerts, then jumped back onto her private plane to make the Super Bowl with time to spare. To get there, she crossed nine time zones and the international dateline.

“She’s rewriting the history books herself,” Kelce said a day after the Grammys, where Swift had won album of the year for a record fourth time. “I told her I’ll have to hold up my end of the bargain and come home with hardware, too.”

And he did. The two kissed on the field again after the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers, Swift in her “87” necklace.

Within days, Swift was on the road again, with Kelce joining her in Australia for some koala-cuddling at the zoo.

In Paris, Swift introduced a section from “The Tortured Poets Department,” her new album. Fans wondered if Kelce had made his way into some of its lyrics — like “You knew what you wanted and, boy, you got her,” from “So High School.”

But the highlight came in June, during a celebrity-packed set of concerts in London. There, Kelce made his Eras stage debut, donning a tuxedo and top hat and carrying Swift in his arms during a choreographed bit before “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”

“I’m still cracking up/swooning,” Swift wrote later on Instagram.

As for Kelce, he spoke with pride about the relationship, noting on the “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast that he had no desire to hide anything.

“That’s my girl,” he said. “That’s my lady. I’m proud of that.”

Swift echoed that emotion when she accepted an MTV Video Music Award last September, shouting out “my boyfriend Travis” in her speech.

“Everything this man touches turns to happiness and fun and magic,” she said.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2024, Kelce attended a number of Swift’s remaining tour dates and mentioned her on “New Heights,” officially referring to her as “his girlfriend” in a July episode.

“She is every bit of what everyone makes her out to be. She’s so awesome. Some of these people you meet, and you’re just like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’” he said. “You are unbelievable, your talent is unbelievable, how you present yourself is unbelievable and I am just a jamoke supporting his girlfriend.”

Swift, too, was regularly photographed attending Kelce’s games — including the 2025 Super Bowl.

A month post-Super Bowl, the couple made their red-carpet debut at the Tight End University in June, an annual three-day training summit founded by Kelce, George Kittle and Greg Olsen.

They were then spotted at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, where Swift hopped on stage to perform “Shake it Off” with country singer Kane Brown. For fans, it marked yet another moment of the couple showing very public support and admiration for one another.

A couple that collaborates together, stays together.

Swift announced her highly anticipated 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” in mid-August and included Kelce in the rollout. It began with a tease from “New Heights,” which later revealed Swift would appear in an episode the following day.

Swift told the Kelce brothers she wanted to show them something, revealing a mint-green briefcase that featured her initials in orange. Jason Kelce asked what was in it, prompting her to pull out a vinyl record.

In the two-hour “New Heights” episode featuring Swift, she went into detail about the pair’s summer following the Super Bowl. She said she spent considerable time in Florida with Travis Kelce. She also said “our jobs are very similar”: They revolve around entertaining “people for three hours in NFL stadiums.”

On her self-described “favorite podcast,” Swift credited “New Heights” for getting her a boyfriend. “This is sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager,” she said of their romance.

And Kelce credited the tour for, well, getting him a girlfriend. “I see you on that stage and see how you can get an entire stadium going, and then I get you in a room and it’s like I’ve known you forever,” he said. “It’s the easiest conversation I ever had, and it was just so much fun that it knocked my socks off.”

In late August, in a five-photo carousel shared to both Swift and Kelce’s official Instagram accounts, the couple announced their engagement. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” she wrote in her caption.

It’s unclear when and where the two got engaged.

The idea seemed too crazy for even the most open-minded Swifty — a wedding at Madison Square Garden? Really? Yet as the July Fourth weekend approached, one of New York's iconic venues began buzzing with activity as crews shuttled equipment into the giant, private space and a law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Swift and Kelce's wedding would be taking place on Friday, July 3.

The couple did not have bridesmaids or groomsmen, instead opting for Swift’s brother to serve as her man of honor and Kelce’s brother Jason serving as his best man. Actor Adam Sandler officiated the star-packed ceremony.

According to Swift's publicist, Swift and Kelce's outfits were designed by Christian Dior Haute Couture and its designer Jonathan Anderson with shoes custom-made by Christian Louboutin. Swift wore Cartier jewelry.

Fans line up outside of Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A truck believed to be carrying singer Taylor Swift arrives to Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A Taylor Swift fan wearing a wedding veil sits at a restaurant next to Madison Square Garden where a "JUST&T MARRIED" sign is displayed during a wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)