The writer is the former director of cyber at GCHQ and now works as a consultant on technology and leadershipSir Richard Moore, the head of UK intelligence agency MI6, argued in a speech this week that whatever the benefits of artificial intelligence, nothing will replace the “human factor” of espionage — the unique bond of trust between agents overseas and the officers who work with them. On the other hand, AI has huge potential to boost spies’ operations as security threats proliferate. In a world where information is ever more contested, what might it mean to have an augmented — or even artificial — intelligence system at the heart of national security?

At its core, AI does pattern recognition. It can learn and generate patterns at incomprehensible speed, dependent on access to trustworthy training data. AI can help an analyst process information, flag trends and, ultimately, assist with decision making. GCHQ, which has led the UK intelligence agencies’ work in this area, has revealed that AI supports human investigators by seizing and intercepting imagery, messages and chains of contact to help pinpoint offenders. It could also be used to search out “hidden people and illegal services” on the dark web.

Intelligence agencies — whether their focus is on recruiting human sources or intercepting communications — exist to make sense of complexity. To interpret events from incomplete jigsaws of piecemeal data and to provide insights that help governments plan their foreign policy and respond to crises. In a job that so often involves seeking the needle in the haystack of information, AI will inevitably have a role to play.