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An honest comparison, with sources

Dewie vs. AI report writers

They solve different problems — and for a DUI case that ends up in court, the difference matters. Every claim on this page links to a public source.

Two very different tools

Dewie: structured documentation
No generative AI, anywhere.

Dewie walks an officer through the evaluation itself — HGN, Walk and Turn, One-Leg Stand, ARIDE, the 12-step DRE protocol — and captures each observation as structured data: clue counts, timings, vital signs, pupil measurements, touch points on a face diagram.

The final PDF is a deterministic rendering of exactly what the officer entered. No model writes, summarizes, or paraphrases anything. There is nothing to hallucinate and nothing to disclose — the officer is the sole author, which is precisely what prosecutors say they need.[2]

AI report writers: generative narrative
An AI ghostwriter for the report.

These tools use a large language model to write a narrative report, typically from the audio transcript of a body-worn camera recording. The officer reviews the AI's text, fills in bracketed placeholders, edits mistakes, and signs.[4],[5]

They can be genuinely useful paperwork automation for some incident types. But the narrative starts life machine-written, and a growing list of prosecutors and legislatures treat that as a problem for evidence that has to survive cross-examination.[2],[7],[8]

DUI evidence is visual. Audio can't see it.

AI report writers work from what was said— by one vendor's own description, its tool drafts the narrative “strictly from the audio transcript of the body-worn camera recording,” without processing video.[5] But nearly everything that decides a DUI case is something the officer watches: nystagmus onset angle, smooth pursuit, missed heel-to-toe steps, sway, leg tremors, pupil size in different light. None of it is spoken aloud, so none of it exists in an audio transcript for an AI to work from.

Dewie is built around exactly those observations. Each one is recorded the moment it happens, in NHTSA-standard structure, and lands on the PDF unchanged — with the officer as its only author.

What the public record shows

Independent researchers, prosecutors, journalists, and legislatures have all examined AI-written police reports. Their findings, cited below.

The time savings haven't held up
The only pre-registered randomized controlled trial of AI-assisted police report writing to date — 85 officers, 755 reports, plus a year-long follow-up across 6,084 reports — found AI assistance did not significantly reduce report-writing time, against vendor marketing that claimed savings of 82%. Officers spent the “saved” time editing the AI's output instead.[1] The department in that study and another early adopter both discontinued AI report writing in 2024, one citing zero time savings.[11]
Prosecutors have rejected AI-written reports
In September 2024 the King County (Seattle) Prosecuting Attorney's Office told police chiefs it will not accept any report narrative produced with the assistance of AI — from any product — citing hallucinations “both large and small.” The memo describes an otherwise excellent AI-drafted report that referenced an officer who was never at the scene.[2],[3] A national issue brief from Fair and Just Prosecution urges similar caution, noting the absence of independent accuracy testing for these tools.[10]
The paper trail is murky
A 2025 EFF investigation of the most widely deployed tool found that the AI's original draft was not retained — leaving no record of which words came from the AI and which from the officer.[4]In a live demo observed by CNN, it was possible to delete every “fill me in” placeholder and submit a report without changing anything else.[6] The vendor disputes parts of that characterization and says draft-retention and usage-report options have since been added[5] — but with Dewie the question never comes up, because no AI writes anything in the first place.
Legislatures are now regulating it
Utah (SB 180, effective May 2025) requires a disclaimer on any AI-assisted report and an officer certification of accuracy.[7] California went further: SB 524 (effective January 2026) requires an AI disclosure printed on every page of the report, retention of the first AI draft for as long as the report is kept, and a full audit trail.[8],[9] A report written entirely by the officer carries none of that baggage — in court or in the case file.

Side by side

Who writes the narrative

Dewie

The officer. Every word in a Dewie report is officer-entered.

AI report writers

A generative AI model drafts it from body-cam audio; the officer edits.[4],[5]

Source of content

Dewie

Structured observations the officer records during each test — clues, timings, measurements, diagrams.

AI report writers

Typically the audio transcript of the body-worn camera recording — video is not processed.[4],[5]

Hallucination risk

Dewie

None. The PDF is a deterministic rendering of entered data.

AI report writers

Documented by prosecutors — including a report that referenced an officer who was not at the scene.[2],[3]

Audit trail

Dewie

Reports are immutable once submitted — no one, including admins, can edit or delete them.

AI report writers

Contested — investigators found no way to tell AI text from officer text after submission.[4],[5]

AI disclosure laws (UT SB 180, CA SB 524)

Dewie

Not applicable — no generative AI is used, so nothing to disclose.

AI report writers

Require per-page disclosures, draft retention, and audit trails where these laws apply.[7],[8]

Built for DUI work

Dewie

Purpose-built: SFST, ARIDE, and full 12-step DRE workflows with NHTSA-standard clue scoring and diagrams.

AI report writers

General-purpose report drafting across incident types; not specific to impaired-driving evaluations.[5]

Works offline

Dewie

Yes — drafts auto-save and queue for upload when coverage returns.

AI report writers

Depend on uploading body-cam audio for cloud processing.[5]

One author. Zero AI. Court-ready.

$10 per officer per month for departments, with an admin portal, seat management, and immutable report archives included.

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Sources

  1. [1]Adams, I.T. et al., “No man's hand: artificial intelligence does not improve police report writing speed,” Journal of Experimental Criminology (2024). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11292-024-09644-7
  2. [2]King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, memo to police chiefs re: AI-assisted police reports (Daniel J. Clark, Chief Deputy) (September 2024). https://pceinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20240920-Email-to-Police-Chiefs-re-Axon-Draft-One-King-County-Prosecuting-Attorney-Dan-Clark.pdf
  3. [3]KOMO News, “King County's new policy: No AI in police report writing over error concerns” (2024). https://komonews.com/news/local/king-county-prosecutor-tells-police-not-to-use-ai-artificial-intelligence-for-official-reports-for-now-errors-concerns-law-enforcement-perjury-criminal-justice
  4. [4]Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Axon's Draft One Is Designed to Defy Transparency” (July 2025). https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/axons-draft-one-designed-defy-transparency
  5. [5]Ars Technica, “Cops' favorite AI tool automatically deletes evidence of when AI was used” (includes the vendor's response describing its safeguards and recently added retention and usage-report options) (July 2025). https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/cops-favorite-ai-tool-automatically-deletes-evidence-of-when-ai-was-used/
  6. [6]CNN Business, “How AI is being used by police departments to help draft reports” (August 2025). https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/12/tech/ai-police-reports-axon
  7. [7]Utah News Dispatch, “Utah lawmaker wants police to disclose when they use artificial intelligence” (SB 180, signed March 2025, effective May 7, 2025) (2025). https://utahnewsdispatch.com/briefs/utah-artificial-intelligence-in-policing-bill/
  8. [8]California SB 524, “Law enforcement agencies: artificial intelligence” (signed October 2025, effective January 1, 2026) (2025). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB524&showamends=false
  9. [9]Police1, “Calif. passes transparency requirements for police use of generative AI report writing” (October 2025). https://www.police1.com/artificial-intelligence/calif-passes-transparency-requirements-for-police-use-of-generative-ai-report-writing
  10. [10]Fair and Just Prosecution, “AI-Generated Police Reports: High-Tech, Low Accuracy, Big Risks” (issue brief) (June 2025). https://fairandjustprosecution.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/AI-Generated-Police-Reports-High-Tech-Low-Accuracy-Big-Risks-June-2025.pdf
  11. [11]Techdirt, “Axon Insists Its AI Makes Police Reports Easier. Nothing Suggests It Makes Them Any Better” (two early-adopter departments discontinuing AI report writing) (July 2026). https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/30/axon-insists-its-ai-makes-police-reports-easier-nothing-suggests-it-makes-them-any-better/

Product names appearing in the cited sources are trademarks of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with and do not endorse Dewie. This page is comparative commentary on a category of software, based on the public sources cited above and accurate to the best of our knowledge as of August 2026. If you believe anything here is out of date or incorrect, email support@dewie.app and we'll fix it.