As global powers race to incorporate artificial intelligence, autonomy and various emerging technologies into their militaries, the Defense Department must keep pace by investing in innovative solutions that prioritize human risk management across the enterprise and allow them to get to trust faster. While attention is often focused on equipment and edge capabilities, such as drones and systems in sea, air and space, the human risk element and the need to protect against increasingly sophisticated insider threats cannot be overlooked.
The DoD is not only bulking up its investments into emerging technologies, as we saw with its FY2024 budget to more effectively integrate emerging technology ($266.2 million), but DoD is also faced with increased venture capital funding in aerospace and defense tech that has shot up in recent years. Organizations like the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) are helping create a bridge between Silicon Valley startups and the Pentagon through partnerships that prove the value of commercial technology and accelerate it for military needs. According to McKinsey, start-ups are particularly well positioned to fulfill critical national security needs, as they are able to complement the traditional industrial base.
More spending is focused on preventing threats around the world, but what about the existential threats from within? Is there a way to better detect potential human risk and insider threats? AI-powered voice analytics technology may be the answer. Offering timely, accurate and objective risk assessment, this next-generation solution could play a crucial role in the DoD’s modernization efforts, ensuring robust protection against bad actors and protecting national security secrets on our soil.
Mitigating the human risk with AI
Humans are the weakest link in preventing insider threats. Gartner predicts that insider risk will cause 50% of medium to large enterprises to adopt formal programs to manage it by 2025, up from 10% previously.
Just last summer, the DoD acknowledged the need to improve monitoring of individuals handling classified information, based on the findings of a 45-day security review conducted after the leak of dozens of classified documents. Now, it’s time to make a deliberate shift toward fielding the most military-relevant commercial technologies at a large scale.
With the continued democratization of technology, there’s never been a more critical time to focus on mitigating human risk, which requires building a modern insider threat management program that includes a comprehensive AI-powered, risk assessment process. As the current generation of groundbreaking AI models emerge — capable of deeply understanding both speech and language — a unique opportunity arises to take global leadership in speech-enabled systems.
Exploration of a voice analytics ‘digital sensor’ powered by AI could mitigate potential threats through continuous monitoring of the enterprise from recruitment to security clearances, force protection, threat financing and the supply chain. With this ‘sensor,’ the DoD will be empowered to swiftly identify and prevent the risk of insider threats before they can happen.
How does AI-powered voice analytics work?
AI-powered voice analytics technology provides a path for organizations to assess security risk quickly and accurately through objective and unbiased risk alerts during the process of screening, vetting and addressing potential risk blind spots. It’s based purely on the assessment of vocal characteristics associated with risk.
Since security involves humans, the main challenge is the sheer number and volume of people involved in various security-related processes, whether it’s managing immigration and asylum, conducting security clearances for or recruiting employees, or screening and vetting individuals to ensure they’re qualified and trustworthy.
Think of a metal detector you go through at the airport before boarding your flight — when the light turns red, it doesn’t mean that you’re not able to board your flight. It simply means that there’s an additional security check required. Like a metal detector, this AI-enabled voice analytics platform will alert the DoD to risks quickly.
A key consideration to keep in mind is that the success of the technology is dependent on it being neutral, impartial and unbiased regardless of the criteria — including race, gender, age, language, accent, location or socio-economic factors and all other variables. With that proven neutrality, you’ll promote equity and fairness in the decision-making process.
With unbiased and accurate speech analysis for real-time scenarios and controlled settings, the DoD can instantly discern insider threats based on not just what is said, but how it is said through cutting-edge voice technology.
Adoption pitfalls
Governments historically have been challenged when it comes to speed of adoption and we know that’s driven by various factors – bureaucracy, constrained budgets and general resistance to change.
Critics have tried to put voice analytics in the ‘lie detector’ column. The goal of this technology is not to replace lie detectors but to augment them by focusing on risk identification. Lie detectors, with their binary assumptions of truth or falsehood, do not scale effectively due to the expert sources required for large-scale situations, like vetting 1,000 employees within hours.
Voice analytics enables a triage at scale for effective deployment of limited resources. Clearing low-risk individuals and alerting your team to ‘bad actors’ dismantles the trade-off between speed and security, allowing you to move more quickly while effectively identifying risk.
In combat zones, particularly in special operations fields, where trust is imperative, traditional vetting methods fall short due to incomplete data, language barriers and access to technology. Trust is imperative to establish quickly in military situations and hostile regions. Voice analytics offers a large-scale, secured, cloud-based approach to building trust and ensuring security.
Technology is a force for good
Digital transformation and success aren’t rooted solely in next-gen technology. Rather, success is rooted in next-gen leadership and execution principles. Leaders are required to assess, mitigate and assume risk in order to move their organizations forward. Creativity, courage and a collaborative approach are necessary to do this effectively and give an organization an advantage against competitors and the “bad actors” that have the potential to undermine us all.
As government entities and security agencies continue to deal with new and existing complexity, there’s tremendous potential for unbiased, safe and reliable innovation. It’s time for technology to address the significant challenges these agencies face, overcoming outdated and legacy structures and models to positively impact the lives of the citizens they serve.
Alex Martin is CEO of Clearspeed.
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