AI Powered Threat Assessment: The Importance and Potential of Trilateral Risk Communication
Overview
At a recent AUKUS forum, I presented research entitled “AI Powered Threat Assessment: The Importance and Potential of Trilateral Risk Communication.” This work examined how artificial intelligence could transform the way the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia share and interpret risk information, with the goal of improving collective defense and strategic coordination.
The Challenge
Effective deterrence and defense depend on timely, accurate threat assessments. Yet today, assessments are often conducted in parallel within national silos, limiting opportunities for synergy. The lack of structured trilateral communication creates three critical gaps:
Fragmented intelligence: Each nation gathers valuable but incomplete streams of data.
Delayed response: Without shared systems, aligning decisions takes time—often too much.
Resource inefficiency: Assets may be misallocated when the burden of interpretation falls on one country without real-time input from partners.
For AUKUS, these gaps are particularly significant in the maritime domain, where rapid detection and response to emerging threats is vital.
Research Goals
The project focused on three interlinked areas:
Shared Risk and Threat Assessment — Exploring the feasibility and benefits of moving from siloed national assessments to a shared trilateral model.
Role of Sensors and Shipbuilding Technology — Investigating how advances in naval sensors, platforms, and interoperability can provide richer, more consistent risk data across partners.
AI Integration — Assessing how artificial intelligence could enable joint analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, improving accuracy and speeding up decision-making.
The Potential of AI
Artificial intelligence can provide three major benefits to AUKUS risk assessment:
Enhanced accuracy through data fusion: AI can combine data from diverse sensors, ships, and intelligence sources across the three nations, identifying patterns that might otherwise be missed.
Improved international cooperation: Shared AI-driven platforms can facilitate a common operating picture, reducing misunderstandings and strengthening trust.
Smarter asset allocation: By highlighting emerging threats in real time, AI can help decision-makers allocate naval, aerial, and cyber resources to the areas of greatest need, supporting local partners under pressure.
Why It Matters
In an era of increasingly complex threats—from hypersonic missiles to cyberattacks—no single nation has the full picture. Trilateral cooperation within AUKUS offers a powerful opportunity to combine strengths. AI-enabled shared risk assessment ensures that:
Threats are detected earlier and with higher fidelity.
Responses are coordinated rather than duplicative.
Local partners receive timely support, enhancing resilience and deterrence.
Outcomes and Next Steps
This research contributes to ongoing AUKUS dialogues about the future of technology-enabled defense cooperation. It highlights that successful implementation will require not just technical integration but also cultural alignment, trust-building, and shared governance of AI systems. Moving forward, trilateral experiments in shared platforms and AI-assisted analysis could lay the groundwork for a truly integrated threat assessment capability.
