CIA Leveraging Digital Transformation Tools in HUMINT Missions
source: executivegov.com (contributed by FAN, Steve Page) | Image: pixabay.com
One of the United States’ most secretive agencies is using digital transformation tools such as AI and human-machine teaming as it tries to solve the nation’s toughest national security problems.
Since the CIA established the Directorate of Digital Innovation, or DDI, in 2015, the agency has increasingly encouraged entwining digital technology into its core human intelligence, or HUMINT, mission, where intelligence is obtained from human sources. Juliane Gallina, the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation, said every DDI mission is guided by human-machine teaming, which starts with data and is improved with AI before being put to use by CIA agents.
“It is important to remember that CIA is not only a HUMINT-focused organization, but we also serve as the functional manager for [open source intelligence, a.k.a. OSINT] for the intelligence community,” Gallina said.
Who Is Juliane Gallina?
Gallina is the latest keynote speaker to be added to the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Digital Transformation Summit, which will take place on April 24 at the Hilton McLean in McLean, Virginia. CIA officials rarely speak in public, making this a phenomenal opportunity to network with Gallina and hear what the CIA has in store for digital transformation in 2025. Tickets are selling fast. Don’t miss out!
How Does the CIA Use AI?
The CIA expects AI to help officers make sense of an overwhelming amount of information by triaging data faster than any human could alone, while gaining more insights from a mixture of OSINT and clandestine intelligence collection. CIA officers can now triage information in a fraction of the weeks or months it previously took by leveraging the latest in AI technologies and data science to help sort, and make sense of, all the information.
“Failure to harness AI and develop robust human-machine teaming will diminish our ability to generate insight, give advantage to adversaries more advanced in their use of AI and challenge our relevancy,” Gallina said.
Lakshmi Raman, the CIA’s chief AI officer, said in an agency podcast that the CIA is incorporating large language models, or LLMs, in generative AI to help the agency’s open source mission. The CIA is also considering the workforce that will be using generative AI features. The agency, Raman said, has a cohort of data scientists, analytic methodologies, AI professionals and engineers that are helping the CIA ensure its data is AI ready, that it can train and run an AI model and that the agency is incorporating AI into the applications it regularly uses.
“We think it’s the human-machine teaming that is going to get us where we need to go,” Raman said. “We need the benefits and the computational ability that a model can provide to our already incredibly experienced analysts who have really strong tradecraft to help them move … further down the field.”
Why the CIA Created the DDI
The DDI was established to help the CIA respond to its growing need to understand, utilize and respond to emerging digital technologies. The DDI combines the agency’s missions of cyber collection and security, OSINT, IT, data and others. The agency views these technologies as increasingly required for its success in a world of ubiquitous sensing, increasing cyber threats and the exponential growth in data.
One of the DDI’s key functions is to connect the proper subject matter and digital and technical expertsacross the CIA so the agency can adapt to future and emerging threats in the digital realm. The CIA said on October 9 that the DDI houses the most current version of many former offices that separately focused on technology, HUMINT or clandestine operations, under one roof. This brought together these once disparate disciplines into a single CIA approach for the modern digital environment.
The DDI now has a “Digital C-Suite” comprised of all of the CIA’s senior digital officers, including the CIO, chief data officer and chief information security officer. This transition permits these offices to have a better impact on all the IT work happening across the agency.
Juliane Gallina is among an eye-popping lineup of federal government IT experts who are speaking at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Digital Transformation Summit on April 24. This is a great chance to learn about business opportunities for government contractors in digital transformation amidst this environment of unprecedented change. Sign up now!