The FBI is leaning harder on artificial intelligence to catch threats faster. Per CBS, Deputy Director Christopher Raia says tips that once took weeks to act on now move in hours. Sometimes minutes. Raia credits AI directly for that shift.
Raia said the bureau has “sprinkled in AI” so that urgent tips now get flagged and sent straight to the field. The bureau simply had too much information and not enough people to sort through it.
Violent crime has dropped sharply nationwide and the murder rate hit a 20-year low. Aggravated assault fell and so did rape and robbery. Raia credits more than just AI for that shift. He points to local police departments, a tighter border, and a renewed focus on violent crime overall. AI just helps the bureau act faster on what those efforts already surface.
This isn’t just sorting emails, it’s reading everything
The FBI’s own website lays out what these tools are actually capable of. They can recognize vehicles, triage voice samples for language identification, and automatically turn speech into text. The bureau’s National Threat Operations Center leans on these systems every day. Algorithms can flag the most urgent tips first, giving analysts more time to act instead of digging through piles of raw data.
One case shows just how quickly that can make a difference. A North Carolina man threatened to shoot up a Black preschool online, and AI pushed the tip straight to the top of the queue. He was sentenced to federal prison not long after.
Flock cameras add another layer to all of this. Raia called them vital for generating leads and finding people, and Flock’s surveillance network already spans thousands of agencies nationwide.
That kind of reach has made some people uneasy, pointing to cases involving officers who abused plate access for personal reasons rather than legitimate police work. Raia insists there is real oversight, pointing to almost 50,000 pages the bureau sent to reviewers over the past year and a half.
Raia maintains that AI hasn’t touched anyone’s civil liberties, arguing that the bureau is still operating under the same rules it always has.
Published: Sep 5, 2026 08:15 am