How Agentic AI is Enabling A New Industry: Intelligence-As-A-Service with Ansel Stein
Show notes
In this episode of “Intel at the Edge”, Chip Usher sits down with Ansel Stein, Vice President of Operations at Crisis24 and a former CIA analyst, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way private-sector companies access intelligence analysis.
Stein discusses how Crisis24 is delivering AI-generated intelligence directly to corporate C-suites — from geopolitical risk to tailored daily briefings built on a company's own institutional knowledge. The conversation digs into the tradecraft behind the tools: how intelligence community standards are codified into AI systems, how human oversight fits into an AI-driven analytic process, and how self-improving models are changing the relationship between analysts and decision-makers.
Ansel and Chip also look ahead to how this "intelligence-as-a-service" model might eventually influence government intelligence organizations, and why deep organizational context and culture will remain a human differentiator even as raw intelligence becomes cheaper and more democratized through AI.
0:00 – Introduction
0:46 – Welcome, Ansel Stein
1:12 – Ansel's path from government to Crisis24
2:32 – Why join a company at the intersection of intel and AI
3:48 – What Crisis24 delivers
6:39 – Serving private-sector clients
6:56 – Tailoring intelligence for corporate use
8:46 – Intelligence-as-a-service for the C-suite
10:13 – How AI-generated analysis works
10:40 – Where's the human in the loop?
12:14 – The National Intelligence Priorities Framework
15:23 – Intelligence Community Directives and analytic standards
16:13 – Codifying tradecraft into AI systems
17:44 – Real-world example: a global executive's daily briefing
18:28 – Building in company-specific expertise
19:43 – Trust and adoption among clients
22:11 – Self-improving AI systems
24:27 – Speed, scale, and organizational accountability
26:15 – Correcting AI mistakes and shifting analytic lines
26:42 – Data ownership and client control
29:26 – Educating companies on the value of intelligence
29:54 – Structuring human-AI analytic teams
33:13 – Will government adopt this next?
35:07 – Where the industry is headed
36:57 – Early movers and the future of decision-making
38:39 – Why organizational culture still matters
39:15 – Closing thoughts
Intel at the Edge Podcast is a product of the Special Competitive Studies Project.