CIA Harnesses AI for Data Triage and Open Source Intelligence

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is extensively leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for data triage and open source information collection duties across the Federal intelligence community, according to Lakshmi Raman, CIA's Director of AI innovation.

“Every day, the CIA is called upon to inform policymakers on a wide breadth of issues, and in order to derive those insights for policymakers, we have to go through vast amounts of data and information. That means content triage is a huge part of what we have to do, and what we need AI to help us to do,” Raman said at the AWS Summit in Washington last month.

Regarding content triage, she noted that the agency employs AI technology for tasks such as translation, transcription, and various processing tasks essential for assisting analysts in filtering their data.

The top CIA official also pointed out the agencies’ efforts to deal with biases in AI systems. Efforts include working closely with the Office of General Counsel and Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties.

Earlier this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA jointly released the Intelligence Community (IC) Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Strategy for the years 2024 to 2026.

Considering the vast and constantly evolving landscape of open sources, the IC has been endeavoring to update its methods for gathering, generating, and disseminating OSINT.