GEOINT, AI and Analysis: Achieving Speed to Mission with Human Analysts as Guardians
Leidos, Thursday, February 5th, 2026
Today's threat landscape moves fast and rarely looks straightforward. Adversaries act quickly, flood systems with data, and operate across multiple domains to hide their intentions and force faster decisions. In response, geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) tradecraft has moved to the forefront of AI adoption.
AI-enabled GEOINT offers powerful advantages for agencies across the U.S. government, but only when paired with intentional human analyst oversight to ensure trust and mission relevance. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has been leading this shift for years.
As a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Intelligence Community and an analyst by training, I personally have observed the Intelligence Community taking a far more aggressive tack toward AI adoption than in the past, and indeed, perhaps more than most IC partners. This makes sense given the complexity of processing, analyzing, and disseminating the increasing terabytes of geospatial data, and for NGA, perhaps the most data of any intelligence agency.