By: Tahir Mahmood Azad
For decades, intelligence agencies in developing countries, especially in South Asia, have been portrayed as all-knowing, all-seeing, and deeply involved in every part of politics and security. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) are often mythologized as all-powerful institutions capable of shaping domestic politics and manipulating regional events. However, this description disguises a basic reality: the traditional human intelligence (HUMINT)–centered model that sustained these agencies is being fundamentally disrupted by artificial intelligence (AI), big-data surveillance, and automated analysis. The actual picture today is not the strength of these institutions but the growing mismatch between their legacy intelligence cultures and the demands of the AI era.
