CIA plans for ‘AI coworkers’, deputy director says

The spy agency managed a few hundred AI projects last year, and recently used AI to generate an intelligence report for the first time, deputy director Michael Ellis said.

The Central Intelligence Agency aims to integrate artificial intelligence-powered “coworkers” into analysts’ workflows in the coming years as part of an effort to rapidly adopt the emerging capabilities for use in intelligence-gathering and analysis, a top official said Thursday. 

CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said these AI coworkers would be housed in agency analytics platforms to help with basic tasks, though humans would still be looped into the process.

“It won’t do the thinking for our analysts, but it will help draft key judgments, edit for clarity and compare drafts against tradecraft standards,” he said in a speech at a Special Competitive Studies Project event focused on AI and the intelligence community. The AI tools would provide triage assistance and ...