AI, Accountability, and the Long Arc of Israeli Security Renewal
October 7 was not only a national trauma; it was a moment of painful clarity. Israel learned, at an unbearable cost, that intelligence without integration is noise, technology without judgment is brittle, and institutions that fail to listen to themselves risk catastrophic blindness. The establishment of a dedicated AI division within the IDF is not a technological fix. It is a statement of intent – to learn, to align, and to renew.
I have resisted writing about October 7 in purely emotional terms. Not because the grief has faded – it has not – but because Israel’s future will not be secured by rage or recrimination alone. It will be secured by something far harder: disciplined self-examination, institutional humility, and the courage to change.
If there is one lesson that the Israeli security establishment appears to have absorbed since that morning, it is this: no single arm of the system can afford to work in isolation again. Intelligence, operations, cyber, logistics, civilian agencies – all must function as one organism, not as competing silos. When they do not, warning signals are missed, fragments remain unassembled, and tragedy slips through the gaps.
Against that backdrop, the IDF’s decision to establish a dedicated Artificial Intelligence Division feels not only necessary, but overdue.
The new division, created within the IDF C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate under the command of Aviad Dagan, is a direct response to the failures exposed on October 7 – especially the failure to translate abundant information into timely decisions. Its associated reserve unit, AIDF, is designed as a living bridge between Israel’s civilian high-tech excellence and the military’s operational core.
That phrase – a living bridge – matters.
For years, Israel has been rightly proud of its intelligence collection capabilities. Sensors, signals, imagery, cyber – few countries can match the sheer volume and sophistication of what Israel sees and hears. And yet October 7 revealed a devastating truth: the problem was not the absence of information, but the absence of synthesis.
Warnings existed. Patterns shifted. Signals accumulated. But the system failed to connect them into a coherent picture that compelled action. Information sat in parallel streams, moving quickly but not converging. The tip of the pyramid – decision-making – remained blunt.
This is where AI enters not as a silver bullet, but as a structural corrective.
As Lt. Col. N., one of the officers leading the division’s establishment, has explained, the goal is not to replace commanders, analysts, or judgment. It is to help humans see what they could not see fast enough on their own. To distill noise into signal. To compress time between detection and decision.
In air defense, AI-driven algorithms are already assisting with real-time identification and interception. In planning, Project Osnat is transforming how the IDF constructs and tests scenarios, allowing headquarters to simulate complex, multi-agency crises involving the military, MDA, police, and emergency services. In procurement, AI tools are beginning to save millions by identifying suppliers faster and validating requirements before tenders even open.
These may sound like administrative gains, but they point to something deeper: a cultural shift toward integration, speed, and shared situational awareness.
Most sensitive – and most consequential – is the division’s work in intelligence and warning. On October 7, social networks and video feeds were flooded with raw evidence of unfolding catastrophe while the system struggled to understand where the epicenters of attack were. AI systems now being developed aim to analyze vast volumes of video and digital content, detect abnormal patterns, identify distress signals, and flag emerging events in real time.
The lesson is stark: when information overwhelms humans, machines can help – if they are embedded thoughtfully, ethically, and under human oversight.
What gives me cautious optimism is that this initiative is emerging alongside, not instead of, accountability. The decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead the formation of a national investigative framework into the October 7 failures has been fiercely debated – as it should be. Democracies argue in public. That is not a weakness; it is a safeguard.
What matters more than the politics is the principle: that no echelon is immune from scrutiny, that intelligence assumptions will be examined, and that institutional learning will not be postponed indefinitely. Israel has been here before. After the Yom Kippur War, the Agranat Commission reshaped intelligence doctrine for a generation. Painful inquiry led to reform.
October 7 demands nothing less.
AI, in this context, is not about technological bravado. It is about restoring a culture of warning. About ensuring that junior voices are amplified rather than dismissed, that diffuse intelligence is not lost beneath confident assumptions, and that human imagination – the ability to conceive of the unthinkable – is supported rather than dulled by technology.
There is a danger, of course. Over-reliance on AI could create new blind spots. Algorithms can inherit biases, reinforce prevailing assumptions, or obscure moral responsibility if treated as oracles rather than tools. Israel, of all nations, understands the cost of misplaced faith in systems.
That is why the emphasis on jointness matters so much. AIDF is designed to operate across branches, not above them. It is meant to integrate, not dominate. Its success will depend not only on code, but on whether the IDF truly embraces cross-disciplinary collaboration – between analysts and operators, reservists and regulars, civilians and soldiers.
Seen this way, the new AI division is part of a broader story of resilience and renewal.
Israel has never been static. It adapts because it must. It absorbs shocks, argues fiercely about responsibility, and – at its best – translates trauma into institutional learning. The determination to confront intelligence failure honestly, while simultaneously investing in structural reform, reflects a country unwilling to surrender to fatalism.
Innovating the future of Israel does not mean pretending October 7 never happened. It means ensuring that its lessons are embedded so deeply that they reshape how the state thinks, listens, and decides.
The promise of AI in Israeli security is not omniscience. It is alignment. Alignment between data and judgment. Between warning and action. Between memory and resolve.
If this moment is handled with humility and seriousness, the establishment of the IDF’s AI division may one day be remembered not simply as a technological milestone, but as a quiet turning point – when Israel chose to learn, to integrate, and to safeguard its future with eyes wide open.
- James Ogunleye, PhD, is the founder and editor of RenewingIsrael.org.