How AI Could Transform Disaster Response? Insights from Octopus Founder

Since the founding of Octopus, Tal Bar Or has been at the forefront of the public safety tech landscape, positioning the company as a leader in unified command and control systems. By pioneering a vendor-agnostic "intelligence layer" that fuses AI, IoT, and GIS data, Bar Or has demonstrated a unique ability to modernize legacy infrastructure for some of the world’s most disaster-prone regions. In this interview, Bar Or offers his exclusive perspective on the shift toward tech-first disaster management, exploring how unified intelligence is redefining the future of global crisis response.

Why did you found Octopus, and what specific gap in the market did you set out to fill?

I founded Octopus because I saw a huge disconnect between all the different legacy systems that cities and enterprises were using. Each department had its own isolated tools, and that made real-time coordination and crisis management incredibly difficult. We wanted to create a unified platform that could seamlessly fuse all these inputs, video feeds, sensor data, and dispatch information into one intelligent control layer.

How does your platform unify fragmented legacy systems to provide actionable, AI-driven intelligence during a crisis?

Octopus acts like a central nervous system. It pulls together all these previously disconnected feeds and all application API into one place as a master integration platform, and then uses AI to analyze and prioritize what’s actually important. So instead of operators being overwhelmed by data, they get clear, actionable insights that help them make quick decisions when it matters most.

How did your system perform under extreme, real-time conditions?

In the last few years, we’ve had the platform battlefield tested in large-scale events, like major urban actual incidents where infrastructure was under stress. In those scenarios, Octopus proved it can handle the heat—continuously delivering intelligence even when things got chaotic. It’s built to maintain performance under pressure.

How do you ensure your cloud-based platform remains operational when a major storm compromises the physical infrastructure?

We’ve designed the platform with multiple layers of redundancy, including hybrid cloud options and on-premises failovers. Even if a storm knocks out certain physical lines, we have fallback solutions to keep core functions running. That way, the system remains resilient and available when it’s needed most.

Why should a city or government invest in a unified command and control layer right now?

With the increasing complexity of urban environments and the growing frequency of both natural and man-made crises, having a unified command and control layer using AI isn’t just a luxury; it’s becoming a necessity. It allows governments to respond faster, reduce chaos, reduce human error in the crisis operation center, and ultimately save lives and resources by having a single source of truth with AI.

Looking ahead, which emerging technologies do you believe will most fundamentally reshape disaster response over the next decade?

I think we’re going to see huge advances in AI-driven predictive analytics, the integration of 5G for ultra-fast communication, and more sophisticated IoT networks that can give real-time situational awareness. Over the next decade, these technologies will make disaster response more proactive, more automated, and more precise.