A FORRESTER TOTAL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY The Total Economic Impact Of Dataminr First Alert Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Dataminr First Alert JULY 2025
“Before Dataminr First Alert, we could not react to [an incident] until it was already happening. Now, we’re able to proactively identify key priorities based on [public safety] trends. It’s allowing us to save a ton of lives.” — Commander, defense
3 Key Findings Key Metrics $190.9K $1.0M $21.5K $99.0K $116.8K Accelerated critical event discovery Accelerated identification of relevant events Faster first response Streamlined situation reporting Improved operations analyst readiness Dataminr First Alert increases the speed of decision-making with a real-time, critical-event discovery solution for the public sector. Powered by advanced AI, Dataminr First Alert detects early indicators of crises — such as natural disasters, public safety incidents, health risks, transportation accidents, infrastructure incidents, and local or global events — enabling public servants to respond quickly and protect lives and communities. ROI 414% BENEFITS PV $1.4 million NPV $1.2 million PAYBACK <6 months
4 Methodology Customer Interviewees FINANCIAL MODEL FRAMEWORK Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewed organizations. COMPOSITE ORGANIZATIONS Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewed organizations. CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS Interviewed six decision-makers at organizations using First Alert to obtain data with respect to costs, benefits, and risks. Role Industry Employees IT Budget Dataminr First Alert Licenses Director, safety and security Education 3,000 $60M 5 Director, operations Law enforcement 2,500 $45M 20 Senior detective Legal services 2,000 $25M 5 Commander Defense 1M+ $50B 50 Supervisor, operations Manager, operations Law enforcement 1,500 $4M 25
5 Total Benefits 13% 70% 2% 7% 8% Accelerated critical event discovery Accelerated identification of relevant events Faster first response Streamlined situation reporting Improved operations analyst readiness
13% Dataminr First Alert accelerated critical event discovery, reducing manual monitoring efforts to enable faster, more informed responses. Interviewees reported a significant decrease in time spent scanning public data for potential public safety risks. Prior to using Dataminr, analysts were overwhelmed by the volume and fragmentation of open-source information, which led to inefficiencies and delayed responses. With Dataminr First Alert, teams received real-time, high-fidelity alerts that eliminated much of the manual work and enabled analysts to focus on assessing public safety risks and advising decision-makers. Over time, improvements in signal quality and filtering further enhanced efficiency. Time to collect and sift through publicly available information to identify potential critical events avoided with Dataminr First Alert over three years 10,344 hours Reduced time spent collecting and sifting through publicly available information to identify potential critical events by up to 70%. $191.0K three-year benefit PV
“Having First Alert has allowed me to do my job more effectively because it pulls information from a variety of platforms, including social media, newspapers, and the dark web, and sends me alerts based on the filters we’ve set. It’s been a huge help. I could never have come close to finding or addressing thousands of references on my own without First Alert.” — Senior detective, legal services
By leveraging Dataminr First Alert, interviewees’ organizations identified relevant events faster and focused analyst effort on high-impact activities. Interviewees reported significant improvements in filtering and prioritizing open-source signals compared to previous environments. Before First Alert, operations analysts were overwhelmed by the volume and velocity of raw, unfiltered data across social media, news, and public platforms — making it difficult to consistently surface credible public safety events. With AI-generated, real-time alerts from Dataminr First Alert, teams quickly distinguished high-priority signals from background noise. Alerts were automatically clustered and tailored to organizational context, freeing analysts to focus on deeper analysis, collaboration, and decision support. These improvements drove measurable gains in analyst productivity and mission responsiveness. Reduced time spent identifying relevant signals by 90%. Time analyzing irrelevant signals avoided with Dataminr First Alert over three years 54,692 hours $1.0M three-year benefit PV 70%
“First Alert helped us reduce the time we spend searching for the right information. Rather than searching across 10 different sources, First Alert compiles a list of relevant items from the day for us to view in one place. This saves us significant human hours.” — Supervisor, operations center, law enforcement
2% Dataminr First Alert enabled interviewees’ organizations to reduce response times to public safety events, which enabled faster interventions and lowered operational risk. Interviewees shared that, in their previous environments, delays in identifying and communicating critical events limited their ability to respond quickly, often resulting in more complex and costly incident management. With Dataminr First Alert’s real-time, high-fidelity alerts and improved situational awareness, field teams could act earlier — sometimes while incidents were still unfolding. This enabled more efficient use of resources and reduced the duration and cost of response efforts, helping organizations shift to a more proactive and prepared operating posture. 50% reduction in first response time. Reduction in first response time with Dataminr First Alert 50% $21.0K three-year benefit PV
“We’re able to react to [public safety events] hours, if not days, ahead of the time with First Alert. When incidents happen, we can quickly share information with the appropriate teams to take action sooner.” — Director, operations, law enforcement
7% By leveraging Dataminr First Alert, interviewees’ organizations reduced manual reporting efforts and delivered more timely and accurate situational updates. Previously, operations analysts spent hours compiling reports from fragmented, static sources that were often outdated by the time they were shared. This limited the speed and effectiveness of communications around emerging events. Through real-time insights and automated filtering across diverse public data sources, Dataminr First Alert enabled faster and more accurate reporting. Organizations significantly reduced the time spent collecting and verifying data, improving agility and supporting more informed decision-making. Streamlined situational reporting productivity gains worth $99,000 over three years. Reduction in time spent producing major situation reports 75% $99.0K three-year benefit PV
“We appreciate the AI-generated summaries that First Alert provides. They give us the latest information and a quick rundown of everything that’s happened around a specific event, so we can keep up as it develops. Instead of reading and stitching together multiple updates manually, I can review a concise synopsis and quickly pass it along to others on the team. Whereas before, it would take 30 to 45 minutes to create a report ourselves.” — Senior detective, legal services
Dataminr First Alert improved the efficiency and quality of operations analyst onboarding while also reducing reliance on director-level training. Previously, new operations analysts required extensive handson guidance to learn how to discover, triage, and prioritize breaking events. This slowed time to productivity and placed a significant burden on senior staff. Through Dataminr First Alert’s automated alert triage and intuitive interface, organizations accelerated new analyst readiness and reduced the time and resources needed for onboarding. Senior leaders could shift focus from training to more strategic work, which improved analyst productivity and overall team efficiency. Reduced training time for new operations analysts by 90%. Training time avoided for new operations analysts over three years 2,592 hours 8% $117.0K three-year benefit PV
“Training analysts in our prior environment was very cumbersome because there was a lot of information to teach someone on the spot. We have so many different use cases, events, and areas of focus. The time to train an analyst varied significantly based on how tech-savvy they were. Training our people on First Alert is pretty instant. It’s fairly easy to use, even for those who are less technical. Once a few people on our team learned how to use it, they passed their learnings down to other colleagues. It was very seamless.” — Manager, operations, law enforcement
Unquantified Benefits Additional benefits that customers experienced but were not quantified include: Improved missioncritical outcomes Enhanced crossfunctional collaboration Improved preparedness for travel and on-site safety risk assessments
Appendix A: Total Economic Impact Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders. . Total Economic Impact Approach Benefits represent the value delivered to the business by the product. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and the measure of costs, allowing for a full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire organization. Costs consider all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the product. The cost category within TEI captures incremental costs over the existing environment for ongoing costs associated with the solution. Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. Having the ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated. Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.” ! Present value (PV) The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PV of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows. Net present value (NPV) The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made, unless other projects have higher NPVs. Return on investment (ROI) A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs. Discount rate The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%. The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of month 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the eighteen-month period. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur. Payback period The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost.
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