AI emergency response training is changing how governments, first responders and organizations prepare for disasters that cannot be fully rehearsed. Every emergency begins with the same illusion that training has prepared you for what comes next. Reality has other plans.
For American readers, the scenarios are painfully familiar: school shootings, mass casualty incidents, industrial accidents, hurricanes and wildfires all demand decisions that cannot be rehearsed for the first time in the real world.
A firefighter arriving at a burning building does not have the luxury of reviewing a checklist before deciding where to go first. A paramedic reaching the scene of a mass casualty event may have only seconds to determine who needs immediate attention and who can wait. A city emergency manager watching dozens of alerts appear simultaneously on multiple screens must decide whether they are facing an isolated incident or the beginning of a much larger crisis.
These are the situations that traditional training struggles to replicate.
Organizations around the world spend years building emergency protocols. First responders practice procedures, governments conduct drills, hospitals prepare for mass casualty events, and companies develop continuity plans.
The real challenge is making the right decision when information is incomplete, communication channels are overloaded, people are frightened, and every second carries consequences.
That is the problem Israeli startup In3D is trying to solve. The company, which has spent nearly a decade developing extended reality (XR) technologies, is now focusing its efforts on a new generation of training platforms designed to help people practice not only what they should do during a disaster, but how they behave when the pressure becomes real.
Using virtual reality, artificial intelligence, 3D environments and biometric sensors, In3D creates immersive simulations where emergency teams, government officials and organizations can experience complex scenarios before they encounter them in the real world.
At the heart of In3D’s approach lies a simple assumption: some situations are too important to experience for the first time during an actual crisis.
From Naval Training to Emergency Preparedness
The story of In3D did not begin in a traditional technology lab, yet on naval vessels.
Company CEO Nathanael Reicher and co-founder Ran Haikin both served as naval officers in the Israeli Navy and graduated from the elite Naval Officers Academy. During their service, they encountered a familiar challenge: how do you train people to operate highly complex systems when the real environment is unavailable?
As Reicher explained during a recent company event, much of the naval training process happened inside classrooms. Cadets studied sophisticated systems, procedures and operational scenarios while the actual vessels remained active.
“You cannot simply bring every training course onto a ship,” he explained. That led to the question that eventually became the foundation of In3D:
If you cannot bring the trainees to the ship, can you bring the ship to the trainees?
In 2017, the two founders established In3D with the goal of using 3D technology and extended reality to recreate complex environments and make specialized training more accessible.
At the beginning, the company focused on helping organizations visualize and understand complicated operational environments. Over time, its technology evolved from digital replicas of workplaces into interactive AI emergency response simulation environments where people could practice decisions, collaboration and problem-solving.
The company’s philosophy remained consistent: use AI emergency response technology to save time, reduce costs and ultimately help people perform better when it matters most.
Then came October 7th, 2023.
The October 7th attacks fundamentally reshaped the company’s mission and the way it viewed its own technology.
Reicher and Chaikin were called back to reserve duty in the Israeli Navy, while In3D continued operating. During that period, the company recognized that the technology it had spent years developing could address a much larger challenge.
“The biggest lesson from October 7th was that organizations cannot train separately and expect to operate together perfectly during a real emergency,” Reicher said.
For years, every organization had prepared independently. Emergency services trained for their own scenarios. Medical teams practiced their procedures. Police forces focused on operational situations, and local authorities developed their own emergency plans.
But real disasters do not respect organizational boundaries.
A major crisis requires the military, police, medical teams, firefighters, local governments, hospitals and infrastructure companies to work together, share information and make decisions based on the same reality.
That realization marked a turning point.
The company moved from building simulations designed around individual professions to creating shared digital environments where multiple organizations can train together inside the same crisis scenario.
The Simulation Is Not the Product.
The World Behind It Is.
At first glance, the technology looks familiar. Visitors entering In3D’s demonstration area naturally focus on the virtual reality headsets placed throughout the room. They look like another piece of consumer technology. But according to Reicher, that is exactly the misconception.
“Everyone looks at the headset,” he said.
“But the headset is not the product. The product is the world we build behind it.”
That distinction is central to understanding In3D. Unlike consumer VR companies, In3D focuses on recreating operational environments rather than entertainment experiences. It builds digital environments that can recreate neighborhoods, factories, hospitals, military facilities or entire cities, then introduces unpredictable events into those environments.
A simulation can include a building collapse, a fire, a hazardous materials incident, a missile strike or a mass casualty event. The goal is not simply to teach users which button to press or which procedure to follow.
It is to test how they think and communicate when everything becomes uncertain.
Training Beyond the Checklist
One moment inside the demonstration was particularly revealing. A firefighter stood inside a smoke-filled virtual building while screams echoed from different directions, radio traffic interrupted every few seconds, and new hazards appeared before the previous ones had been resolved.
The purpose is not to create a dramatic experience, but to recreate the cognitive overload that often determines whether people perform effectively during an actual emergency.
“During a crisis, there is no checklist,” Reicher explained.
That does not mean procedures are irrelevant. It means that real-world events rarely unfold exactly as they were practiced. Someone is shouting in the background. Another person is calling for assistance. A new report arrives that contradicts previous information. A commander requests additional resources. A decision has to be made before the full picture is available.
In those moments, technical knowledge is only part of the equation. The ability to communicate, prioritize and remain effective under pressure becomes just as important. This is where In3D believes traditional training methods reach their limits.
A conventional simulator may teach users what should happen next. In3D’s approach is designed to examine how people respond when things do not go according to plan.
The company’s simulations can include virtual characters powered by artificial intelligence that respond dynamically to the trainee. Instead of following a fixed script, these digital participants can react differently depending on the conversation.
They may be confused, frightened, provide incomplete information or require reassurance. The trainee must decide not only what action to take, but also how to communicate with another human being in distress. This technology is designed to evaluate more than operational performance. It examines decision-making, teamwork and human interaction under extreme conditions.
When Stress Becomes Data
Some of the most interesting elements of In3D’s AI emergency response platform are not the ones visible to the user. While participants move through the simulation, biometric sensors can collect physiological information, including heart rate and stress indicators.
The idea is simple: if the simulation creates no emotional response, it may not be accurately representing the pressure of a real event.
After the exercise, organizations can analyze when stress levels increased, which decisions were made during those moments, how communication changed under pressure and whether participants struggled with specific tasks when cognitive load increased.
The technology does not attempt to replace real-world experience. Instead, it aims to make training closer to reality before people face situations where mistakes have consequences.
No simulation, however sophisticated, can fully reproduce the unpredictability of a real disaster. The company readily acknowledges that its goal is not to replace field experience but to bridge the gap between training and reality.
One of the challenges In3D faced while developing specialized emergency simulations was ensuring that the company was not pretending to be the expert in fields where it was not. The company does not decide how a doctor should treat a patient, how a firefighter should operate during a rescue or how a team should identify victims after a disaster.
That knowledge comes from the organizations themselves. Each simulation is built together with the experts who will ultimately use it.
For medical scenarios, healthcare professionals define the required procedures. For rescue operations, field experts provide the operational knowledge. In3D’s role is translating that expertise into a digital environment where it can be practiced repeatedly.
That approach allows the company to focus on what it does best: building the AI emergency response technology that makes complex training possible.
From Disaster Zones to Emergency Command Centers
During the company’s demonstration event, visitors experienced several AI emergency response simulations already developed for emergency organizations. The scenarios included disaster response involving fires, collapsed structures, hazardous materials, victim identification, rescue operations and medical response. According to Reicher, some of the simulations are based on real events that occurred in Israel.
“We also recreate events that happened in the country,” he said. The objective, he emphasized, is not to reproduce trauma. It is to extract lessons from those experiences and improve future preparedness. This distinction is especially important as governments and organizations worldwide rethink emergency readiness.
From wildfires in California to hurricanes along the American coastline, from infrastructure failures to active shooter incidents, communities are increasingly recognizing that preparation cannot rely only on written procedures.
A crisis is not just a technical problem. It is a human decision-making challenge,
A Small Company With a Global Ambition
Despite having a team of roughly 15 employees, In3D has built an unusually broad customer base. The company has worked with organizations including Israel’s Home Front Command, military units, hospitals, Israel Electric Corporation and other large-scale public and private organizations.
Its ability to operate with a relatively small team is partly connected to the company’s decision to grow through bootstrapping rather than venture capital funding. Reicher says the company has been profitable since its early days, building its growth through customer revenue rather than external investment.
That path is uncommon in the startup world, particularly in Israel’s technology ecosystem. But the company’s evolution has followed major shifts in technology and global events.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, In3D developed solutions that allowed engineers and specialists to provide remote guidance when international travel became difficult. As interest in the metaverse grew, the company continued investing in 3D environments. As artificial intelligence advanced, it began integrating AI capabilities into simulation development and scenario creation.
And after October 7th, the company made what Reicher describes as its most significant strategic transformation: turning years of accumulated expertise into an AI emergency response platform focused on resilience and emergency preparedness.
The company does not position itself simply as a defense technology provider. Its broader vision is about helping cities, communities and organizations prepare for a world where crises are becoming more frequent and complex.
Turning Sderot’s Experience Into Global Knowledge
One of the most ambitious examples of this vision is taking shape in the Israeli city of Sderot.
For years, the city became internationally known as a symbol of life under constant security threats. After October 7th, it found itself at the center of one of the most difficult moments in Israel’s history. Now, local leaders are trying to transform that experience into a resource for others.
The city is developing a resilience center designed not only as a place of remembrance, but as a training environment where emergency teams, communities and organizations can learn how to respond to future disasters. The project, developed with In3D and other partners, is designed as a fully immersive training facility.
Participants will receive devices that function as operational communication tools throughout the exercise. They will receive updates, messages, intelligence reports and citizen requests, similar to the information flow during a real emergency.
At the same time, biometric monitoring will track their physiological responses throughout the scenario. Then the building itself becomes the disaster environment.
The objective is to transform what happened in Sderot into knowledge that can help others. During the event, one of the most powerful moments came when the city’s resilience center director pointed toward the street outside.
“You see that street?” she told the audience. “That was where the police station was.” The location became one of the symbols of October 7th.
Today, the goal is to create a connection between the memorial, the city’s history and a new center dedicated to preparation.
Not to erase what happened, but to learn from it.
“At October 7th People collected bodies there in bags,” she said. “Now we want people to come here and learn how to save lives.”
In that moment, the technology almost disappeared. The story was no longer about virtual reality or artificial intelligence. It was about transforming one of Israel’s darkest days into practical knowledge that could one day save lives somewhere else in the world.
When the Scenario Learns From the Person Inside It
One of the biggest limitations of traditional emergency training is that the scenario itself is usually predictable. The instructor knows what will happen. The participants know that, at some point, another challenge will appear. A fire will start. A building will collapse. Additional casualties will be introduced.
Even when the exercise is complex, everyone in the room understands one important fact: this is still a simulation.
In3D is trying to change that dynamic. Its platform is built around the idea that emergencies are not static events. They evolve, escalate and often become more complicated precisely when teams believe they have regained control.
Inside the simulation, training managers can introduce new developments in real time. If a team is handling one crisis effectively, another layer of complexity can be added. A second incident can emerge. A communication failure can occur. A new threat can force participants to reconsider their priorities.
The objective is not to overwhelm people for the sake of creating stress. It is to expose them to uncertainty, the element that defines almost every real emergency.
According to the company, artificial intelligence will increasingly play a role in making these scenarios adaptive. Instead of every participant experiencing the same exercise, future AI emergency response systems could adjust the difficulty based on real-time signals from the person inside the simulation.
If biometric sensors indicate that a participant is remaining too comfortable, the scenario could become more challenging. If stress levels reach an extreme point, the system could reduce complexity to maintain an effective learning process.
The result is a different kind of simulator, not one that simply presents a disaster. One that responds to the people trying to manage it.
Why Emergency Preparedness Is Becoming a Global Technology Challenge
Although In3D was shaped by Israel’s security reality, the company’s ambitions extend far beyond military and emergency organizations.
Across the world, governments and companies are confronting a new reality: crises are becoming more frequent, more interconnected and more difficult to predict.
For American communities, the challenge takes many forms. Wildfires are reshaping entire regions of the western United States. Hurricanes continue to test coastal infrastructure. Hospitals prepare for mass casualty events. Communities and institutions regularly conduct active shooter preparedness exercises.
In each of these scenarios, the hardest question is often not whether a procedure exists. It is whether people can execute that procedure when the environment becomes chaotic.
A company executive facing a major disruption may never have to enter a burning building, but they may still need to make decisions that affect thousands of employees.
A hospital administrator may know emergency protocols by heart, yet still face unprecedented pressure when resources become limited.
A city leader may have years of planning documents, but only minutes to decide how to allocate emergency resources.
This is where In3D sees a broader opportunity for AI emergency response training. The company believes that resilience is not only built through policies and documents. It is built through experience, including simulated experiences that create the emotional and cognitive pressure of real events.
Beyond the Battlefield: Preparing the Private Sector
For many years, emergency simulation technologies were primarily associated with military organizations and specialized government agencies. They were expensive, complex and often available only inside dedicated training facilities.
In3D’s approach reflects a broader shift: bringing advanced simulation capabilities closer to the people who need them. The company argues that emergency readiness is no longer only a concern for firefighters, soldiers or medical teams.
Large companies can also find themselves facing sudden crises. Imagine a major employer experiencing a missile strike, a cyberattack that disrupts critical systems, a factory accident or an infrastructure failure. The immediate questions are not only operational.
- Who communicates with employees and their families?
- Who manages public communication?
- How does leadership make decisions when information is incomplete?
- How does the organization continue operating while responding to the crisis?
As the Sderot resilience center director Ayelet Shmuel explained during the event, these situations go beyond traditional business continuity planning.
“This is not just Business Continuity,” she said. “This is Crisis.”
That distinction highlights a growing recognition among organizations worldwide: surviving a crisis requires more than having a plan. It requires practicing decisions before the pressure arrives.
The Limits of Preparation and the Role of Technology
During the event, the Sderot resilience center director shared an example from outside Israel. She described a Jewish community in Detroit that had spent years preparing for emergency scenarios, conducting drills and working with local authorities.
When a real attack occurred at a synagogue, the immediate threat was eventually stopped. But afterward, members of the community reached a difficult conclusion: their response did not fully match the way they had imagined they would perform.
Their lesson was not that training failed, it was that training must evolve.
Practicing procedures is important, but procedures alone cannot recreate uncertainty, fear, communication challenges and the psychological pressure of a real emergency.
That is the gap technologies like In3D are attempting to address. The goal is not to replace human judgment, but to strengthen it.
In the most critical moments, technology does not make the final decision.
People do.
- The doctor deciding which patient requires immediate attention.
- The firefighter choosing the safest rescue path.
- The emergency manager identifying the bigger picture.
- The leader communicating clearly when others are looking for direction.
The purpose of simulation is to help those people arrive at those moments better prepared.
Turning Experience Into Innovation
Few technology companies can tell a story quite like In3D.
A company founded around naval training challenges evolved through a decade of technological shifts, survived without traditional venture funding and transformed itself after one of the most significant crises in Israel’s modern history.
Its journey reflects a broader pattern in technology: innovation often emerges where constraints are strongest. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated remote collaboration. Advances in artificial intelligence opened new possibilities for adaptive simulations. Global instability created demand for better preparedness tools. Each moment pushed the company in a new direction.
Today, In3D is betting that emergency readiness will become one of the defining technology challenges of the coming years. Because the question facing governments, communities and organizations is no longer whether another crisis will happen.
It is whether they will be ready when it does. At the end of the demonstration, after the presentations ended and visitors began testing the AI emergency response systems themselves, one idea remained clear:
- The simulator does not save lives.
- The headset does not save lives.
- Artificial intelligence does not save lives.
People do.
Technology can shorten the distance between preparation and reality. Crossing that final distance will always remain a human responsibility.
Artificial intelligence will never replace the people making life-and-death decisions during a disaster. What it can do is ensure that when those moments arrive, they are not making those decisions for the first time. As disasters become more complex and less predictable, the ability to rehearse the unimaginable may become one of the most valuable forms of preparedness.