On December 15th, in partnership with DefenseOne and ESRI, IC professionals from the Beltway region gathered at the Hotel Monaco in Washington D.C. for The Human Machine Team: The Analyst of Today and Tomorrow, a standing-room panel event where academia and industry experts elaborated on how intelligence analysts currently leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to provide support and make recommendations to the intelligence and national security communities.

The panel consisted of:

• Susan Kalweit, Director, Analysis, NGA
• Dr. Jennifer Sample, Principal Scientist, Advanced S&T Development, JHUAPL
• David Scavo, Solutions Engineer, Orbital Insight
• Isaac Zaworski, Vice President, VRICON
• Moderator: Patrick Tucker, Defense and Technology Editor, DefenseOne

Participants expanded on some of the latest challenges that today's analysts face, with these key takeaways:

• Analysts currently spend less than 10% of their time working on the “unknown unknowns.”  AI implementation will change this by monitoring the “known knowns,” which will enable them to focus on the most pressing challenges.
• AI technology will learn by using reappropriated data for means other than intended.
• Analysts are currently involved in AI research, which will facilitate human-machine collaboration.
• We could be five to ten years (or even closer) to implementing AI that will make assessments and produce reports.
• The goal of the IC is to utilize all-source intelligence to build an effective AI model.

With a successful outcome for The Analyst of Today and Tomorrow, a third installment of The Human Machine Team will be announced in early 2019. Please stay tuned for more details!