Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealed Tuesday that artificial intelligence tools have been used to scan tens of thousands of potentially classified documents to determine whether they should remain secret.
Speaking at the Amazon Web Services Summit in Washington, Gabbard said AI helped expedite the declassification review process for material related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and that of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, AP reported. The effort, ordered by President Donald Trump, led to the release of large volumes of previously unreleased information that may have otherwise taken months or years.
“We have been able to do that through the use of AI tools far more quickly than what was done previously — which was to have humans go through and look at every single one of these pages,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard did not specify what safeguards were in place to protect the data fed into the AI systems or how the tools determined what content remained classified.
In her remarks, Gabbard said AI will be critical to modernizing intelligence workflows, allowing analysts and field officers to focus on high-value tasks. She hopes to expand partnerships with private-sector tech companies, rather than invest federal resources into internal system development.
“How do we look at the available tools that exist — largely in the private sector — to make it so that our intelligence professionals… are able to focus their time and energy on the things that only they can do?” she asked.
Her comments come amid a broader debate in Washington over the role of commercial AI in national security — and how much trust should be placed in machines to handle America’s most sensitive secrets.
Originally published on Latin Times
