Is AI America's Next 9/11-Scale Blind Spot? House Intel Thinks It Might Be

A new House Intelligence Committee report calls artificial intelligence (AI) one of the most significant emerging challenges facing US national security.

The warning appears in the committee’s 25-year review of the 9/11 Commission Report, posted ahead of the anniversary.

Why the 9/11 Framework Has Aged

The 2004 commission built its recommendations around foreign terrorist networks. Those recommendations led to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center.

The new review says the intelligence challenge has since expanded beyond counterterrorism coordination. It says threats often overlap as adversaries combine cyber operations, influence campaigns, and economic pressure.

Benjamin Buchanan teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In his testimony, he said AI poses a familiar problem.

“T]he 9/11 Commission famously concluded that the attacks revealed a failure of imagination. The government’s inability to take seriously a threat that did not fit existing categories and to connect information scattered across institutional seams led to devastating strategic surprise. Twenty-five years later, AI presents, in its own way, a similar kind of challenge,” he said.

Buchanan added that technological progress is outpacing institutions’ ability to adapt.

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Where the Report Sees AI Risk

The report says cyberattacks will likely accelerate as AI improves. Buchanan testified that AI sharpens both offensive and defensive cyber tools.

Private industry issued a similar warning days earlier. OpenAI and over 100 companies signed an open letter warning that AI-enabled attacks will spread within months. Five Eyes agencies said the same in a June statement.

Biotechnology raises separate concerns. Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster warned that AI paired with biological research carries dual-use risk.

Foreign influence is a third area. Review co-chair Rep. Josh Gottheimer named Iran, China, and Russia. He said they have run covert operations against the United States since 2023.

“AI super charges all of it. A single adversary can now generate fake voices and fake videos and millions of fake messages,” he added.

The report also cites public reporting on AI data centers. China and Russia may be working to inflame existing US debates over new sites, it says, exploiting legitimate concerns about cost.

The committee wants the Intelligence Community, the network of US agencies that collect and analyze intelligence, to adopt advanced AI itself, since adversaries already are.

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