The House Intelligence Committee's 25-year review of the 9/11 Commission Report names artificial intelligence one of the most significant emerging challenges to US national security. The report warns that AI is accelerating cyberattacks, supercharging influence operations, and straining the institutions built to counter them.
The failure of imagination, repeated
Benjamin Buchanan, who testified before the committee, drew a direct line between the 2001 attacks and today's AI threat. He told lawmakers AI poses a similar challenge to the failure of imagination that preceded 9/11 — technological progress is outpacing institutions' ability to adapt.
The report describes the threat as layered. Cyber operations, influence campaigns, and economic pressure now overlap in ways they didn't two decades ago. And as AI improves, the report says, cyberattacks will only accelerate. Buchanan noted that AI sharpens both offensive and defensive cyber tools, giving the edge to whichever side moves faster.
Industry and allied warnings
The committee isn't alone in its assessment. OpenAI and more than 100 companies signed an open letter warning that AI-enabled attacks will spread within months. The Five Eyes intelligence agencies — the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — issued a similar warning in a June statement.
Those parallel alarms give the report's findings weight beyond Capitol Hill. When the companies building the technology and the allies sharing intelligence on it arrive at the same conclusion, the problem stops being hypothetical.
Who's running the operations
Rep. Josh Gottheimer named Iran, China, and Russia as running covert operations against the US since 2023. He said AI supercharges influence operations, enabling fake voices, fake videos, and millions of fake messages designed to sow confusion.
The report also cites public reporting on AI data centers, suggesting China and Russia may exploit US debates over where new facilities are built. The implication: the infrastructure itself has become a vector for influence.
The dual-use problem
H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser, warned the committee that AI paired with biological research carries dual-use risk. The same models that help scientists design treatments could be turned toward harmful ends.
That's the harder part of the threat to address. A cyberattack is visible. A fake video is detectable. But a technology that accelerates both medicine and bioweapons research doesn't lend itself to simple countermeasures.
What the committee wants
The report's central recommendation is that the Intelligence Community adopt advanced AI itself. Adversaries already have, the committee notes, and the US can't defend against a technology it doesn't use.
Whether the IC can move fast enough — and whether Congress funds the effort — is the open question. The report makes the case that the cost of waiting is measured in the same terms as 2001: the failure to imagine what's coming.
