Our Story
A Decade of Disciplined AI Innovation
2013 — Foundation
IBM Watson & the AI Foundation
Founder David Lawson launched the company that would become Call Simulator to bring advanced AI to the public, nonprofit, and education sectors. By 2014, the team was among the first authorized to build a commercial application on IBM Watson — using natural language processing to measure social program impact at a time when very few organizations outside major tech companies were working with these technologies.
2017 — Thought Leadership
David Lawson Authors
Big Good
CEO and Co-founder David Lawson authored Big Good: Philanthropy in the Age of Big Data & Cognitive Computing — an Amazon #1 new release its category, making the case for applied AI in mission-driven organizations.
2018 — The Team Forms
David Lawson and Nathan Crock, PhD Begin Collaborating
In 2018, Founder David Lawson began working with Nathan Crock, PhD, whose background in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science provided the scientific foundation the platform would need to scale. Earlier work on AI-powered quality analysis had revealed the real limits of the technology at the time. Rather than force a solution, the team focused on where they could make an immediate impact: simulation-based training.
2019 — First Product
First AI-Powered Emergency Dispatch Simulator
Unlike competitive products relying on scripted decision trees, the simulator used natural language processing to create dynamic, responsive training conversations for 911 emergency dispatch (a first in the industry). The same year, the NSF invited the team to submit a full SBIR Phase I proposal under their Artificial Intelligence program.
2021 — Scale & Launch
Priority Dispatch Partnership & Call Simulator Launches
A formal partnership with Priority Dispatch — the global leader in emergency dispatch software — brought the technology into training programs across more than 1,000 911 centers worldwide. That same year, Call Simulator was established as a dedicated company focused entirely on AI-powered role play simulation for professional training.
2021 — Co-Founders
Call Simulator Founded by David Lawson and Nathan Crock, PhD
With the technology validated and a major industry partnership secured, David Lawson and Nathan Crock formally co-founded Call Simulator, Inc. Nathan brings research credentials spanning the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and Affiliate Faculty in Scientific Computing at Florida State University, and continues to shape the platform's development as a Board Member while serving as Principal AI Engineer at Premera Blue Cross.
2022 — Accelerator & LLM Research
Engage.vc Cohort 11 & Large Language Model Exploration
Selected for Cohort 11 of Engage.vc — an accelerator backed by 14 Fortune 500 companies, evaluated on real-world business applicability. That same year, the team began serious exploration of large language models for conversational simulation, well before the broader market reached the same conclusion.
Early 2023 — Architecture Shift
First GenAI-Powered Role Play Conversation Generator
When the OpenAI API became available, Call Simulator moved immediately, launching one of the industry's earliest GenAI-powered role play conversation generators. While competitors still operated with scripted interactions and modified chatbots, Call Simulator was generating dynamic, contextually responsive conversations using large language models.
2023 — Voice AI Partnership
First AI Role Play Partnership with ElevenLabs
Call Simulator became one of the first AI-powered role play companies to integrate with ElevenLabs — now the recognized global leader in AI voice technology. This partnership brought realistic, expressive voice to simulation at a time when the capability was only beginning to emerge.
2025 — Compliance
GDPR Compliant
Call Simulator achieved GDPR compliance, meeting the European Union's data protection and privacy standards for all enterprise clients and their learners. Verified through Vanta's continuous compliance monitoring platform.
2026 — Security
ISO 27001:2022 Certified
Call Simulator earned ISO 27001:2022 certification, the internationally recognized standard for information security management. For enterprise clients in regulated industries, this certification provides independent third-party validation that Call Simulator's security controls meet the highest global benchmarks.
From IBM Watson in 2013 to GenAI in 2023, Call Simulator has consistently been at the frontier of applying AI to human communication training — identifying trends early, moving fast, and building products others in the space are still working to replicate.
Industry Recognition
Google · Microsoft · NVIDIA
Our Commitment
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging
At Call Simulator, Inc., we are on a mission to use AI to help make the world a better and safer place. In support of this mission, we believe our culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging helps us create a more innovative and comprehensive product offering for our clients. We value understanding and incorporating different perspectives brought forward through varied experiences and backgrounds. This includes but is not limited to our team members' cultural background, sexual orientation, gender, age, ethnicity, language, life experiences, physical and mental abilities, and religious beliefs.
Call Simulator, Inc. is committed to providing an inclusive work environment which welcomes people of all backgrounds, ensuring diversity of thought belongs at our table and is heard and appreciated. This aligns with our approach to our AI projects, which aims to maximize diversity, connectivity, and accessibility among all data projects, collaborators, and outputs.
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