The AI agent augments the secret agent in the human world. AI is a very powerful enhancer of your ability to use data — within and external to your organization — to find people with the motivation, aptitude, and access to help you.

AI may not be different in nature from prior technological revolutions — but it’s different in scale. It impacts the entire spectrum of what we do as a national security community, from paperwork all the way to revolutionizing the targeting cycle.

AI is going to affect the way that people work inside the intelligence community in much the same way it’s going to affect how people work on the outside. It is cross-cutting — and that is different than satellite technology or other technologies that have come along.

Our adversaries want to control how we think, how we see the world, the decisions we make — ultimately to undermine our decision autonomy. This battle for perception isn’t just to confuse or deceive. It erodes trust and replaces facts with what our adversaries want us to believe.

This time period is a time of consequence, undoubtedly. Rarely have we seen the convergence of the end of a unipolar moment with a revolutionary technology that has a lower barrier of entry for state actors and individuals alike.

The operational risk of not using AI outweighs the security risk of using AI. AI drives decision advantage — and transforming to an AI-first warfighting force is how we deter and, if necessary, prevail against our adversaries.