AI and the Future of Open-Source Intelligence

This webinar, cohosted by the Stimson Center’s Strategic Foresight Hub and Energy, Water, and Sustainability Program, explores how AI-driven systems are transforming the practice of OSINT and broadening its applications across security, governance, and sustainable development. Panelists will examine the technologies powering this shift, from pipelines that draw social media and satellite data into analysis models, to machine learning systems that classify and map global events in real time. The discussion will also address how advances in large language models (LLMs) depend on diverse, high-quality public datasets, and what it takes to responsibly gather and process information in low-resource languages and contexts. Throughout the conversation, experts will weigh the opportunities these systems create for faster crisis response against the governance challenges they raise, including disinformation risks, algorithmic bias, and the need for transparency and accountability in automated intelligence work.