Intelligence and espionage services need to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) in order to protect national security as cyber criminals and hostile nation-states increasingly look to use the technology to launch attacks. The UK's intelligence and security agency GCHQ commissioned a study into the use of AI for national security purposes. It warns that while the emergence of AI create new opportunities for boosting national security and keeping members of the public safe, it also presents potential new challenges, including the risk of the same technology being deployed by attackers. "Malicious actors will undoubtedly seek to use AI to attack the UK, and it is likely that the most capable hostile state actors, which are not bound by an equivalent legal framework, are developing or have developed offensive AI-enabled capabilities," says the report from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI). "In time, other threat actors, including cybercriminal groups, will also be able to take advantage of these same AI innovations".