Artificial intelligence is changing the practice of strategic intelligence and the national security challenges the United States will face well into the next decade. AI tools can help analysts and collectors process information at speeds and scales that were previously impossible, but they also create new capabilities for adversaries. For the U.S. Intelligence Community, AI is a technology to employ, a capability to understand, and a threat to anticipate.   

Advances in AI are reshaping cybersecurity, accelerating the discovery and exploitation of software vulnerabilities, and altering the balance between attackers and defenders. Governments increasingly depend on technological advances developed in the private sector, raising questions about security, procurement, data management, privacy, and oversight. At the same time, competition over AI has become an important dimension of the broader strategic rivalry between the United States and China.   

AI can automate parts of the intelligence process and help analysts work through volumes of data, but human judgment remains a cornerstone of analytic tradecraft. Finding the right division of labor between machines and intelligence professionals will be an enduring challenge.   

These issues will be the focus of a fireside conversation with Israel Soong, director of the CIA’s Office of Artificial Intelligence. 

Brian O’Neill, Professor of the Practice at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and Jon Lindsay, associate professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, will moderate.