CIA adopts AI “co-workers” to help analysts spot spies and predict hostile moves

The CIA plans to integrate specialized artificial intelligence into its primary analytics tools to help officers track foreign spies and predict hostile actions from abroad.

Politico reported that CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis shared these plans during a Special Competitive Studies Project event in Washington, DC, on Thursday. 

He explained that within two years, these “AI co-workers” will be standard across all agency platforms to handle routine tasks. 

“Within the next couple of years, we will have AI co-workers built into all of the agency’s analytic platforms — a kind of classified version of generative AI that will help our analysts with basic tasks,” Ellis said.

Security and global competition

These digital assistants are expected to help officers draft judgments and spot patterns in global intelligence, though Ellis clarified that humans will keep control over “key decisions.” 

The CIA is forging its own path as the partnership between federal departments and Anthropic hits a breaking point. Following disagreements over the use of the “Claude” AI for surveillance and autonomous weaponry, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using the company’s tech in March.

The Department of Defense has since labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk, a move the company is currently challenging in court. While Ellis did not name the firm specifically, he suggested the agency must remain independent of private sector limitations. 

“We cannot allow the whims of a single company to constrain our capabilities,” he noted.

The agency is also looking at digital assets as a frontier for national security. Ellis previously mentioned in May that the CIA tracks blockchain data to assist in counterintelligence, viewing cryptocurrency as a vital part of the technological race against China.

The push for better tech is largely driven by a need to maintain an edge over Beijing. Ellis pointed out that the technological lead the U.S. once held has shrunk. 

“Five to ten years ago, China was nowhere near America, in terms of technological innovation. That’s just not true today,” he said.