In a report published this week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence paid special attention to artificial intelligence in the landscape of threats facing the United States, while designating China as a particularly tough adversary in this field.
The “decisive technology of the 21st century” is also “the most formidable competitor” to the United States. This is how the Office of the Director of National Intelligence describes artificial intelligence. In its “Global Threats Assessment 2026” published on Wednesday, American intelligence voices concerns about the proliferation of AI and its military uses.
Artificial intelligence has now become a growing strategic priority in the United States, mobilizing private investments, public attention, and efforts from the White House and the Pentagon. Already used since 2017 for intelligence analysis, it “has been used in recent conflicts to influence targeting and streamline decision-making, marking a significant change in the nature of modern warfare.”
However, the report highlights that this advancement is contested, stating that “considerable progress made by other global powers in AI challenges economic competitiveness and national security advantages of the United States,” especially against China, which “fosters massive adoption of AI” through its human resources, data, and investments.
Russian and Chinese Competitions and Threats
The new edition of the annual report gives much more prominence to artificial intelligence than the 2024 and 2025 editions. It attributes a central role to it, but one that is difficult to define precisely: unlike the traditional threats embodied by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or terrorist groups, AI appears less as an autonomous actor than as a transversal force, impacting all these powers.
Last year, the report already mentioned Russian deepfakes without detailing objectives or impacts. It mainly focused on Moscow’s pioneering use of AI on the battlefield, especially against drones, as well as China’s overall strategy to dethrone the United States as the global leader in AI by 2030. “In the coming years, governments are likely to exploit new and more intrusive technologies (including generative AI) for purposes of transnational repression,” says U.S. intelligence services.
“The China fosters massive adoption of AI, thanks to its talents, data, public funding, and international partnerships. Maintaining a leading role in AI gives the United States a strategic advantage, but China is the most performant competitor and aims to surpass them by 2030,” describes the Global Threat Assessment 2026 from American intelligence.
During her testimony last Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tulsi Gabbard revisited a recent example. The Director of National Intelligence mentioned an extortion operation led by China last August, which she described as a warning sign. According to her, the perpetrators used an artificial intelligence tool to extort funds from government health institutions, emergency services, and international religious organizations.
“Intentional” Omissions in the Report?
The new analyses, however, mark a turning point: they hardly mention AI’s role in electoral interference or disinformation, despite being significant concerns in 2024. DefenseOne, a site specializing in U.S. defense and international security, notes that at the time, several U.S. officials warned about the risks, stating that “tools like generative AI will significantly lower barriers” for interfering in elections, or that some actors were “using AI to generate videos aimed at inciting attacks.”
This retreat comes amid a dismantling of anti-disinformation measures in the United States, particularly since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. In contrast, Europeans continue to sound the alarm on this issue. “Artificial intelligence has taken the cognitive war to a new level,” said Kaja Kallas, Vice President of the European Commission, highlighting the persistence of a threat in the democratic space. In war as in AI, everything is a matter of perspective.
