KASH PATEL: AI helps new FBI find missing kids and stop mass shooters faster

When I was first sworn in as the ninth director of the FBI, one of my top priorities was to modernize the bureau with new, advanced technology that would allow us to better serve and protect the American people. When I arrived, the FBI was working on archaic patchwork systems without AI, successfully installing a 2025 car battery in a car from 1985. Our infrastructure was a Commodore 64 when it needed to be a supercomputer. No more Band-Aids on gunshot wounds. A change of general store was necessary.

Over the past year, I am incredibly proud of the progress we have made under President Trump’s leadership. We rebuilt and overhauled the FBI’s infrastructure across the company, helping the bureau achieve record-breaking results in ending violent crime and protecting its homeland, while providing historic visibility.

Artificial intelligence is a big part of that overhaul. When former Deputy Director Dan Bongino and I arrived here at headquarters, AI was about to play a role in the FBI. That had to change, so we got to work. We quickly led the way by setting up an AI working group to explore how we can accelerate modernization, getting input from grassroots leaders in your communities. We appointed a chief AI officer and established an AI Review Board to streamline our efforts. We built an AI Champions Program to identify advocates across the office. Perhaps most importantly, we are building direct partnerships with private sector leaders to rebuild our infrastructure and deliver AI at scale.

FBI DIRECTOR KASH PATEL SAYS BUREAU IS VERIFYING AI TO COMBAT DOMESTIC, GLOBAL THREATS.

AI is essential to what we do. It helps us identify victims of child abuse, arrest and convict abusers, and more. Last year alone, the FBI identified and located 6,300 missing children, a 30% increase, and arrested 2,000 abusers, a 20% increase – largely because of this development. In a recent FBI Richmond case, the FBI’s Child Exploitation Operational Unit used facial recognition equipment to save children ages 8 and 12 from a would-be abuser, who is now serving 50 years in prison.

AI is essential to what we do. It helps us identify victims of child abuse, arrest and convict abusers, and more.

The FBI is now using new AI tools to transcribe calls, provide brief summaries and help match contacts to other complaints received. When someone calls NTOC – National Threat Operations Center, our 911 center – AI tools transcribe the call, draw an actionable summary of the threat and quickly scan our database to compare it to other open threat lines. Each tip also receives a lead value for revealing the highest threat-related calls to Treat Intake testers. This specific method of sending a threat helped the FBI to act quickly and stop an assailant planning a mass shooting at a North Carolina elementary school.

Fingerprint matching is one of the most common methods used by the FBI to identify individuals. Some adversaries try to fake their prints to hide their identity by burning, cutting or etching them to remove ridge detail and make it difficult or impossible to make a match. Because fingerprint matching is an automated process, altered fingerprints are missed. CJIS – Criminal Justice Information Services Division, our data hub – has integrated AI-enabled, real-time fingerprinting capabilities. In 2025, this new solution found 34 altered fingerprints, leading to the identification and arrest of wanted persons, drug traffickers and fraudsters.

We also use AI to facilitate rapid translation of large volumes of text, audio and video, and to scale terabytes of data. After the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas in Israel, the FBI had more than 75 terabytes of data to review, with more information coming in every day, including more than 75 search returns. In theory, the return of a single search warrant can contain 180,000 messages. It can take six or seven analysts working seven days a week for four or five weeks to review a single search warrant return. The FBI often has thousands of audio and text files to review during a single case. Our current models translate with about 80% accuracy, so our translators can accommodate the 20% that require a human touch.

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We do not replace people; we add them, sharpen their focus and accelerate the pace of our investigation. Collecting data to stay on the bench is like keeping Babe Ruth on the bench forever.

We identify and arrest many fraudsters, fraudsters and drug traffickers who try to hide their identity, thanks to AI. Through cooperative research and development agreements with private companies, the FBI is developing our counterfeit detection programs to support these investigations.

Equally important, AI is helping the FBI to be more accountable to the taxpayer by applying it to business operations across the bureau and getting more value for your money. With the help of our Enterprise AI assistant, the FBI reduced costs by $300 million and identified over $1.2 billion in contract ceiling savings.

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These are just a few ways artificial intelligence has allowed the FBI to meet its mission. Under the leadership of the Trump administration, the FBI is now a faster, more efficient and more accountable crime-fighting machine thanks to the implementation of modern technology. The FBI desperately needed these revolutionary changes, but previous leadership refused to waste time and resources, crippling our capabilities. That changed rapidly under my leadership and will continue.

The new FBI – the largest law enforcement agency in the World – now gives our team the tools they need to do the dangerous work we ask them to do every day: protecting America. And because of the brave workers who use those tools, America is safer than it has been in decades.

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