AI, audits and OSINT featured in House intel bill

An annual spy authorization bill seeks to boost the intelligence community’s use of artificial intelligence and takes another whack at advancing reforms to open source intelligence (OSINT), among numerous other provisions.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence passed its version of the fiscal 2027 intelligence authorization act on Monday in a closed-door markup. The annual bill includes a sweeping set of provisions that impact the management and operations of the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. The committee typically writes and debates most of the bill behind closed doors, before releasing an unclassified version of its markup.

Here are five key sets of provisions in the House bill:

Focus on AI

The bill would establish a “chief AI officer of the intelligence community” position within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. That person would serve as the director of national intelligence’s chief advisor on AI and spearhead IC-wide strategies for adopting the technology.

During the Biden administration, then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines designated a chief AI officer to oversee IC-wide efforts. But the position doesn’t exist in statute and it’s unclear whether anyone is fulfilling that role today.

The bill would also “significantly” increase funding for “expanded access and use of frontier AI models for intelligence and cyber missions” across the intelligence community, according to a summary released by the committee. But the unclassified version of the bill text doesn’t include any further specifics on funding.

OSINT redux

Last year, the House version of the intelligence authorization bill included major reforms to OSINT. But those provisions didn’t make it into the final version of the bill.

In this year’s version of the bill, House lawmakers again included multiple provisions on OSINT and commercially available information.

The bill would require the director of national intelligence to provide Congress with specific budget numbers on how agencies are investing in OSINT. That would include the number of full-time equivalent civilian and military personnel assigned to OSINT duties by program and across the intelligence community.

The bill would also require an evaluation of how AI-enabled capabilities could be integrated into OSINT collection management processes.

And it seeks to improve the sharing of OSINT across the intelligence community, similar to last year’s bill.

IC IG authorities

The House bill would provide the intelligence community inspector general with the same law enforcement authorities as other cabinet-level IGs.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) has been pushing for that change alongside Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.

IC IG Christopher Fox has also come out in support of the legislation. In a statement for the record provided for a closed June 24 meeting, Fox argued that a lack of law enforcement authorities has inhibited oversight within the intelligence community.

“An empowered IC IG with law enforcement authority could have served as the missing institutional safeguard in earlier eras of intelligence abuse,” Fox wrote. “It could have identified misconduct sooner, preserved evidence, protected whistleblowers, and forced accountability before public hearings became the only remaining remedy. Just as important, it would have changed the incentives.”

Prediction market ban

Intelligence officers and IC contractors would also be explicitly banned from using nonpublic information to trade on prediction markets under the House bill.

It would have the director of national intelligence issue guidance to ensure that officers, employees and contractors in the IC are “prohibited from, using nonpublic information to engage in trading on, or using their position to manipulate, a prediction market, except as may be necessary to conduct authorized intelligence activities.”

The provision comes after a U.S. soldier was charged earlier this year with using classified information to profit of from prediction market bets. The soldier allegedly made more than $400,000 on Polymarket using nonpublic information about the timing of the raid to capture ousted Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.

IC audits and budgets

The House bill also criticizes the “opaqueness” of some budget materials submitted by the intelligence community to congressional committees. “The amount of funding within the intelligence community’s budget that is not documented in budget justification materials transmitted to the committees, and for which there is insufficient financial reporting during the fiscal year, is significant,” the bill states.

It directs IC leaders to ensure Congress is provided with a “full, complete, and accurate cost, for each program, project, and activity of the National Intelligence Program.”

The bill also requires intelligence agencies to modernize their business systems to better track funding decisions. While IC agencies have been required to produce annual, audited financial statements since 2014, only one element of the intelligence community has achieved an unqualified “‘clean’ financial audit,” the bill states.

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