Microsoft Unveils Generative AI Tool for Intelligence Community; William Chappell Quoted

Microsoft has launched a generative artificial intelligence model designed to help U.S. intelligence agencies process and analyze large volumes of classified information without relying on the internet, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

William Chappell, chief technology officer for strategic missions and technology at Microsoft, said his team took 18 months to develop the GPT4-based large language model, which is deployed in an air-gapped environment that is not linked to the internet.

“This is the first time we’ve ever had an isolated version – when isolated means it’s not connected to the internet – and it’s on a special network that’s only accessible by the US government,” he told the publication.

According to Chappell, the generative AI service is static, allowing the tool to read and process files without learning from them or from web-based data.

“It is now deployed, it’s live, it’s answering questions, it will write code as an example of the type of thing it’ll do,” Chappell said of the technology.

The Intelligence Community has yet to issue accreditation to the generative AI tool, according to the report.