Maintaining the Intelligence Edge

The security of the United States and the safety and well-being of its citizens rests on the ability of the intelligence community to stay ahead of adversaries. But stakeholders from across the intelligence community agree that they have entered 2021 behind the technology curve.

Maintaining the Intelligence Edge: Reimagining and Reinventing Intelligence Through Innovation is a research report prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Technology and Intelligence Task Force and is sponsored in part by Booz Allen. This publication provides practical advice on how the intelligence community can incorporate innovative emerging technologies to future-proof its operations while maintaining an advantage over our increasingly sophisticated adversaries.

Key questions are addressed within this report to advance national security interests including:

• How is the intelligence community utilizing technologies to improve intake across the various means of collection: human, signals, imagery, and open source?
  
• What aspects of data collection and analysis can be improved through artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), cloud computing, and analytics?
• How can “analyst-machine performance” be optimized to create more bandwidth for analysts to think strategically?
• Can AI/ML and cloud services be used to improve review of intelligence products for policy, intelligence, and military clients?
• When compared to global adversaries, what are the national security implications of incorporating emerging technologies into the U.S. intelligence enterprise?

We stand at the threshold of a new era of intelligence innovation powered by disruptive technologies. But a new set of tools will not be a magic bullet. Rather, success will be determined by how fast organizations can field and integrate the latest technologies to achieve their mission.

A reactive approach to technology adoption is a recipe for failure and eventual obsolescence. Instead, the dawning era of intelligence innovation compels the intelligence community to reimagine its tradecraft and missions. The focus should be on harnessing the potential of innovative technologies and reinventing their processes, partnerships, workforce, incentives—and their culture—to embrace technological transformation.