How the CIA predicts future risk of terrorism GovInsider

When the safety and security of an entire nation is at stake, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US needs to be "ahead of the curve", said Teresa Smetzer, Director of Digital Futures. It needs to go beyond just reporting on events to actually anticipating the next crisis. The agency's anticipatory intelligence cell uses machine learning and data science to draw insights from events that had happened in the past, and "report to our policymakers any issues of instability that they might have to deal with". "Rather than responding, they are proactively able to understand what they can do to change the situation," Smetzer said at the recent AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Data is the "lifeblood" of many organisations, whether public and private, said Smetzer.