The Sarge A.I. mark. (Image: All Engines Studio)
Since August, calls to William Chandler Peterson American Legion Post 171 have been answered by Sarge A.I., a computer receptionist built for veterans' posts. Call (815) 459-0481 at noon on a Tuesday or at two in the morning on a Sunday, and she picks up.
Sarge was built by All Engines Studio, a software studio in Northbrook, working with Post 171's officers on what the post actually needed.
What she does
She answers the questions the post hears most. What is coming up on the calendar, which she reads from the events posted on this website. Who can join the American Legion, and how. Where to find help nearby, from the resources page on this site. Where the other Legion posts in the area are, if a caller lives closer to one of them. How to reach Honor Flight, or the Veterans Assistance Commission for help with a VA claim.
When she can't answer something, she takes a message: the caller's name, a number to call back, and what it is about. The message goes to the right officer by text or email as soon as the call ends, not into a voicemail box nobody checks until the weekend.
If a caller sounds like they may be in crisis, she gives them the Veterans Crisis Line, 988 and then press 1, and she alerts a person at the post so someone follows up.
What she doesn't do
She is not a person, and she doesn't pretend to be one.
She doesn't give advice on VA benefits, claims, health or legal questions. She points callers to the people whose job that is.
She doesn't guess. The post's monthly meeting moves around from month to month, so when someone asks when it is, she doesn't make up a date. She takes a message and an officer calls back.
She doesn't make decisions for the post, take payments, or promise anything on an officer's behalf. And if she doesn't understand a caller after a second try, she says so, tells them she is still learning, and takes a message.
AI receptionists in general
A lot of businesses now answer the phone with software. Doctors' offices use it, and so do car dealers and banks. Most people have run into one, and plenty of people don't like them. The usual complaint is that the machine is there to keep you from reaching a person.
Post 171's situation is a little different. The post has no building and no front desk, and the volunteers who run it have jobs and families of their own. Nobody can carry the post phone through a working day.
What separates a useful AI receptionist from a frustrating one comes down to a few plain questions. Does it answer from real, current information? Does it admit when it doesn't know? And when it takes a message, does that message actually reach a person?
The AI behind her
Sarge runs on the same kind of AI as ChatGPT and Claude. Those tools are good at conversation, and they have a known bad habit: ask them something they don't know, and they will often give a confident answer that is wrong.
A post can't afford that. A wrong meeting time or a wrong phone number sends someone to the wrong place. So Sarge is held to the post's own information, meaning this website and what the officers have given her. If the answer isn't there, she says so and takes a message.
Try it
Call the post at (815) 459-0481 and ask her how to join, or what is on the calendar this month. The events she knows about are the ones posted on the calendar at www.LegionCrystalLake171.org, so a new event on the website is a new event she can tell callers about.