Five Ways Artificial Intelligence Can Assist an Investigation

Artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly valuable tool in modern investigations. Despite headlines suggesting that AI will replace investigators, the reality is much different. AI excels at processing large amounts of information quickly, while investigators remain responsible for verifying facts, evaluating evidence, and making professional judgments. Used appropriately, AI allows investigators to spend less time organizing information and more time analyzing it.
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1. Reviewing Large Volumes of Documents
Complex investigations often involve thousands of pages of discovery, including emails, contracts, financial records, and text messages. Law firms and eDiscovery professionals increasingly rely on platforms such as Relativity and Nuix, which incorporate AI to organize documents, identify conversations involving specific individuals, and generate preliminary summaries. Many investigators also use tools such as Claude to review exported records, build timelines, or locate recurring names before conducting a detailed manual review. AI accelerates the process, but the original documents remain the authoritative source.
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2. Transcribing Audio and Video
Hours of interviews, witness statements, surveillance recordings, and body-camera footage can be difficult to review manually. Companies such as Cellebrite and Magnet Forensics now include AI-assisted transcription features within their investigative software, allowing audio to be converted into searchable text. Instead of repeatedly listening to recordings, investigators can instantly search for a person’s name, address, license plate, or date and return directly to that portion of the recording. This improves efficiency while preserving the original evidence for verification.
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3. Finding Patterns in Data
Investigators frequently work with large spreadsheets containing financial transactions, phone records, GPS locations, or other structured data. AI can help identify recurring contacts, unusual transaction patterns, communication spikes, or geographic trends that deserve further attention. For example, a fraud investigator reviewing thousands of bank transactions may use AI to highlight repeated payments to the same account or transfers occurring immediately before suspicious activity. These observations generate investigative leads, but every finding must still be examined and confirmed through traditional investigative methods.
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4. Organizing Digital Evidence
Today’s investigations often produce thousands of digital files from computers, mobile devices, cloud storage, and publicly available online sources. AI can organize photographs, emails, documents, and social media records into searchable categories, reducing the administrative burden on investigators. During an OSINT investigation, AI may also assist in organizing names, aliases, usernames, phone numbers, business entities, and addresses into structured tables that make relationships easier to visualize. The investigator then determines which connections are meaningful and supported by evidence.
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5. Assisting with Report Writing
Report writing often consumes hours of an investigator’s time. By providing AI with a report template and the key facts of an investigation, it can organize information into a draft that follows the investigator’s preferred format. AI can also summarize witness statements, surveillance logs, or previous reports and incorporate the relevant information into a single report. The investigator must still verify every fact and ensure privacy settings are configured to protect sensitive case information.
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The Takeaway
Artificial intelligence is changing how information is processed, but it has not changed the fundamentals of a professional investigation. Witnesses must still be interviewed, evidence must still be verified, and conclusions must still be supported by facts. AI is best viewed as another investigative toolโ€”alongside digital forensics, OSINT, surveillance, and traditional investigative techniquesโ€”that helps experienced investigators work more efficiently without replacing their judgment.
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Sources
โ€ข National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
โ€ข National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
โ€ข Relativity
โ€ข Nuix
โ€ข Cellebrite
โ€ข Magnet Forensics
โ€ข Oxygen Forensics