It has been suggested that this article bemerged intoIntelligence (information). (Discuss) Proposed since January 2026.

Theintelligence field, also known as theintelligence business, theintelligence establishment, theintelligence complex, theintelligence industry, thefield of intelligence, or thebusiness of intelligence is the globalindustry revolving aroundintelligence in all of its forms.^[1] The intelligence field is composed of people, groups, and organizations who deal – directly or indirectly – with intelligence, and/or support those people that do.^[2] This industry contains;lawyers (not only those practicingintelligence law),professors and academics (not just those inintelligence studies),diplomats,biologists,chemists,astronomers,photographers,videographers,information technology specialists,historians,economists,data scientists,graphic designers,food service workers,psychologists andprofilers,essayists,intelligence analysts,c-suite executives,hackers,coders, andsoftware developers, among others.^[3][4][5][6] Individuals employed by intelligence organizations are usually fully employed officers of intelligence agencies calledintelligence officers. Those persons popularly called "spies" make up only a small part of the intelligence field – so small that some scholars have even argued that the work of spying, calledespionage, is anachronistic and unnecessary in the modern intelligence field.^[7][8][9] In other words, just as not everyone in thefilm industry is an actor, not everyone in the intelligence field is a spy, or even deals with intelligence. Hager Ben Jaffel and Sebastian Larsson write that:

"In sum, doing intelligence today could mean anything from informing high politics and producingrisk assessments, to dealing with the mundanities of the everyday labor oflaw enforcement, to managing vastdatabases involving intricate computerizedsurveillance solutions."^[6]

One derogatory term that has been used to describe the intelligence field, especially in the United States, is theintelligence-industrial complex.^[10]

Due to the secretive, often covert, nature of the intelligence field, gaining accurate employment figures or profit and revenue figures in either thepublic sector orprivate sector anywhere is difficult for data scientists, human resources officers, or economists.^[11][12] From an etymological perspective, when the professions of intelligence were being developed, the intelligence field deliberately chose words that were mundane and obtuse, so their enemies would not know what these jobs really were.^[13] Job postings are even today often intentionally or unintentionally mislabeled by employers.^[11][12] Most of the employment figures below are best-estimates.

The one thing that is not measured below is the effectiveness of the industry leaders, because, while those measurements are often performed within the industry, those reports are mostly kept secret or classified.

Intelligence communities are the collective efforts of a country surrounding intelligence^[14][15] – but confusingly, most of the employment studies today only measure the size of individualintelligence agencies. It is inadequate to measure individual agencies alone, because, for example, theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) is only 1/18th of the entireUnited States Intelligence Community (USIC) – meaning that the CIA is only one of 18 intelligence agencies in the United States.^[16] Comparing the size of the CIA to the size of the KGB is not adequate, because it does not include all of the other people in those governments employed in the industry.^[17]

The following are, therefore, the top leading intelligence communities where figures are found. These rankings incorporate both the number of employees and the owned physical assets of these communities, like access to satellites and deployment times:^[18][19]

The ten most powerful governmentintelligence agencies, when compared to the relative size of their intelligence communities, are the following:

Many of the companies below are involved in more industries than only the intelligence field.^[50] The following are the most powerfulprivate sector intelligence agencies in the world:

Where they do exist, the leading criminal intelligence organizations are the following:

The global intelligence field, and especially the private sector, is today increasingly diversified in its portfolio, moving away from its core industrial production and management.^[6] This industry has often branched-out into secondary and tertiarygoods and services, such asunion busting,policy recommendation,estimates andplanning,sanctioned assassinations,mass surveillance programs,malware production and deployment, and so on. One common adage for the intelligence field is that "intelligence is as intelligence does."^[72]

However, the singular product which remains at the core of this industry isintelligence. Intelligence asinformation is to have some secretknowledge of something. Togovernments and the public sector, this information is knowledge of and/or belonging to theenemy, which will often gain an advantage inarmed conflict.^[73] To the private sector, intelligence is ususally knowledge of acompetitor, and/or "trade secrets" belonging to that competitor – such asblueprints andpatents. However, because governments are often liable if they get caught spying on their own citizens, they will often hire-out private intelligence agencies to perform that same intelligence.^[74][75]

Unlikecoffee, which is the core product of thecoffee industry, orsugar, which is the core product of thesugar industry – intelligence is not a manufactured product, but it is nevertheless collected and cultivated in some manner.

Intelligence work can be conducted by governmentintelligence agencies,police forces, andmilitary intelligence units. This work can also be engaged by private organizations, including;private intelligence agencies,multinational corporations,private investigators,drug cartels,narcotic cartels,terrorist groups, and others.

The traditional manner in which intelligence has been cultivated, gathered, or collected throughout history, is by using contractual agents known as "spies." It is the job of a spy to gather this information, and their career field is known asespionage. For governments, spying occurs during bothwartime andpeacetime, so to say that intelligence is knowledge of the enemy is an incomplete definition, because intelligence collection also occurs against allies.^[76] Spies are often single and mission-specific solitarycontracting agents who are commonly known as "secret agents."

Espionage, as an occupation, is older than the intelligence field by thousands of years. Espionage is so old that it is often jokingly called "the world's second oldest profession."^[77] However, and especially with the advancement of modern technologies – the collection of information has grown far beyond the capabilities of the traditional spy.^[9][78]

Surveillance is often considered as either a tool or a method, and it is one of the newer and non-traditional forms of intelligence collection, which has grown with the advent of modern technologies, such as theprinting press andpostal systems. The firstmass surveillance systems ever created were thosepost offices in response to the proliferation of written correspondences after the former barriers to communication were lowered. While governments and companies provided the service of carrying the post and dispatches, they also engaged inpostal censorship.^[79] In fact, the oldest law enforcement agency in the world was thePost Office Investigation Branch – until the BritishRoyal Mail was privatized in 1996, splintering fromPost Office Limited.^[80][81]

After centuries, newer communications technologies were invented usingradio frequencies, especially thetelegraph and thetelephone. One such radio device was called abug.The Thing was a famous bug deployed by theNKGB shortly after the end ofWorld War II. It was a gift of the Soviet Union to US AmbassadorW. Averell Harriman, and hung on the walls of theEmbassy of the United States in London from 1945 to 1951.^[82]

Today, mass surveillance is carried out over theinternet. Computer programs, softwares, andmalware – likekeyloggers andspyware – are deployed by any interested party in collecting massive pattern of life profiles through the monitoring ofdigital footprints.^[83] Revelations discovered after theSnowden disclosures by the former US government contract employee revealed that theNational Security Agency (NSA) had already deployed malware against American citizens without their knowledge or consent.^[84][85]

Surveillance has also become the progenitor of over one billionsurveillance cameras scattered around the world, which are video cameras designed for the purposes of monitoring human movements. Mostly, these cameras are used by police departments or security services, but they are also often incorporated into the capabilities of the intelligence field.Greater London was once known as the surveillance capitol of the world, and there remains a surveillance camera on nearly every street corner there.^[86] Over 50% of all the world's surveillance cameras are inChina.^[87]

Today, video camera surveillance usesfacial recognition systems andgait analysis to identify "suspected" individuals. InLondon, for example, theMetropolitan Police officers working at video monitors use facial recognition to match a list of suspects – as many as 6,000 or more within the city alone – to those "matches" identified by the system.^[86][88] The surveillance network of the United Kingdom is overseen by theBiometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner.^[89]

Open-source intelligence (often abbreviated as OSINT) is the information that has been collected through means that are publicly available to anyone and collating that information into consumable intelligence products. OSINT collection is considered to be one of the more traditional crafts within intelligence, dating back to at least the 16th century and theCouncil of Ten.^[90]

Through much of history, after the creation of publicly available information to be found innewspapers, journals, andnews magazines – the job of an OSINT officer was to sit for hours every day reading those relevant publications.^[90] OSINT still maintains that core principle, but has also become inundated with the rapid and constant flow of modern information on the internet with ever-shrinking news cycles.^[91]

OSINT has become so integrated into intelligence collection that some scholars ofintelligence studies write that it is "the lifeblood of intelligence." In order to sift through the massive amounts of raw data nearly overwhelming the basic wage government employees of intelligence agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency createdIn-Q-Tel to raise the capital for private intelligence agencies that would manage OSINT for them.^[92]

After the 2010's, the definition of OSINT collection often incorporates the websiteWikipedia somewhere in that definition, or conversation – because this website itself is built as anopen source information platform. Wikipedia is now often considered a first-base for OSINT collectors, and veteran analysts will train their newer recruits to use this website.^[93] While the information here is sometimes wrong, leaders train that it is important for an OSINT collector to know where aWikipedian got their information, because theinformation landscape here represents knowledge in the popular zeitgeist.

OSINT collection is merely the practice of observing the information provided by a source, but it is no longer considered OSINT collection when those collectors decide to contribute information to Wikipedia – that is when it becomesinformation warfare.^[94][95] In 2007, for example, one incident that violated the Wikipediaterms of service occurred when users atIP addresses registered to computers owned by theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the CIA were discovered having edited several pages, violating theconflict of interest.^[96]

Another concern for the industry is that enemies and "bad actors" might use open sources to send hidden communications. For example, since anyone is allowed to edit Wikipedia, something that might appear as random editing or vandalism might actually be a coded message tosleeper agents,stay-behind networks, or other spies deployed in the field.^[92] This is calledsteganography – one famous example was the secret code broadcast over the radio inRwanda which signaled to the militia that theRwandan genocide had begun, and that they needed to begin fighting: "It's time to cut down the tall trees."^[97]

There are two types of intelligence officers that typically "manage" spies in the field. One is called aCase officer, who is assigned to "handle" agents. The other works in the field ofcollection management, and is usually some form of subject matter expert who is entrusted to verify the veracity of claims.^[98] In the United States, these officers might be calledReports Officers (ROs) orCollection Management Officers (CMOs).^[99] In other countries, these people might be calledCollection Managers orCollection Strategists.^[100]

In order to counteract any enemy activities,counterintelligence (CI) exists to ensure that the information has not been contaminated in some way bymoles orrats. Counterintelligence officers, as they are called, are not assigned to collect intelligence about the enemy, but about the enemy's ability to collect intelligence. The primary subfield of CI is known as counterespionage (CE), and it is the job of CE to hunt, find, and catch other spies.

There are several working theories as to howintelligence management should work, and how the intelligence field should be structured around that process. During theFrench Revolution, certain approaches to professionalizing the approach to working with the products produced by espionage were invented, laying many of the foundations to the modern intelligence management approach. Many years later, duringWorld War I, further advancements were made on both sides of the war.^[101]

In 1948, theintelligence cycle was theorized in the United States byPhillip Davidson andRobert R. Glass while they were serving as staffers at theUnited States Army Command and General Staff College.^[102] The theory first spread throughout theUnited States Intelligence Community, where it was then absorbed by most of the intelligence field. Today, the intelligence cycle, and its accompanying theory ofintelligence cycle management, is the predominate working theory in nearly every modern intelligence agency.^[102] The intelligence cycle is not, however, a law of human nature that must be followed everywhere, it is only a theoretical model of how some scholars and practitioners think that the industry should operate. In those countries that follow the cycle model, you will find their intelligence communities structured around it. Elsewhere, intelligence communities might appear different, and with different priorities.^[102]

Many scholars ofintelligence studies have identified faults in the standard theory of the intelligence cycle, and have created alternatives.^[103]Art Hulnick created theMatrix Model, for example.^[104] TheTarget-Centric Approach To Intelligence is another breakaway from the intelligence cycle invented by Robert M. Clark.

Similar to how rawhops collected from the field must be processed anddistilled to createbeer, and how many other crops must be processed into products prior to consumption – whenraw intelligence is collected from the field, or gathered by other methods, it must also be properly processed. This is literally calledintelligence processing, and it is the intermediary step in between collection and analysis.^[106] Often, case officers and collection managers do a decent enough job at processing that they are able to pass on field reports directly to analysts. But in the modern era, digital technologies also scoop-up thousands of bits of secret information every second;telephone intercepts,text messages,satellite photographs,emails,laser mic surveillance transcripts, are all in need of processing by intelligence managers.^[106]

WhenMichael Hayden, then theDirector of the National Security Agency, was asked what his major problems were shortly after theSeptember 11 attacks, thepithy aphorism that he gave in response was: "I have three: processing, processing, and processing."^[106][107]

Raw intelligence is pure and unfiltered, meaning that it might be written in another language that needs to betranslated into the working language of that intelligence community, or it might need to bedeciphered if it is something written incode. Intelligence comes in to headquarters or field bases from every method of collection and gathering, and sometimes even fromall-source intelligence.^[106]

Much of these processing responsibilities have in recent decades been taken out of public sector intelligence agencies and hired-out to contractors inBig Tech.^[108]

After raw intelligence is adequately processed, it is passed tointelligence analysts. Analysts make up the bulk of intelligence work throughout the world. Analysis is effectively thethinking stage of the intelligence process, where creativity is often considered a paramount trait for an effective analyst, alongside quick thinking and wisdom. The industry prefers to hire those people called "the best brains possible" as intelligence analysts.^[106]

While traditional spies are often hired straight out of theMarines or theinfantry, and are not necessarily depended upon for theirbook smarts, but for theirstreet smarts – intelligence analysts must besmart. They are almost always required to be college graduates and deep thinkers.^[106]

However, as the world of intelligence tends to shift focus from one primary fascination, such as from the "evil virus of Satan"^[109] that was either Capitalism or Communism during theCold War, to the illusive threat ofterrorism with the rise of groups likeAl-Qaeda – it takes time to train analysts on new topics, newgeographies anddemographies, and newcultures. Especially within government intelligence work, analysts serve at the pleasure of their bosses, and are often given work that lies outside of their expertise because new situations develop. It is preferable for intelligence communities to also hire recent graduates withlanguage proficiencies in the region or area where they might be operating.^[106]

While in the corporate sector, analysts might be valued more for theiropinions than merely their assessments – most government analysts are expected to be dispassionate in their work. It is impossible for humans not to feel emotion, but the objective of public sector intelligence analysis is to avoid what is calledpolitical spin. When analysts succumb to the pressures of politicians, the resulting products are called "intelligence to please," which is generally frowned upon by the rest of the intelligence field. Government intelligence does not exist to tell politicians what they want to hear, it exists to tell them the truth about their enemies.^[106]

If analysts do not work quickly enough, their work might receive something called an OBE, which means that the intelligence was "overtaken by events."^[106]

The relationship between the intelligence field and their clients changes depending on whether the work is in the public sector or the private sector, because theCEOs of companies and thepoliticians of governments usually want different things, and expect different outcomes.

Those persons at intelligence organizations who are assigned to interact or face with their clientele are calledbriefers, and their specific responsibility is to presentintelligence briefings (which is similar, but different to adebriefing).^[111] Most intelligence analysts are not usually assigned to provide briefings. Intelligence briefings are usually in some form ofpresentation, in addition to some form of written intelligence product calledfinished intelligence.

For government agencies, the primary client and consumer of intelligence products are the politicians somewhere at the top of that governmental structure – every government is different, but usually, the decision makers are oftenelected officials or members of themonarchy. Intelligence products exist to support thatpolicymaking anddecision-making. These decisions primarily revolve around matters related tonational security,military affairs,law enforcement, andinternational relations.^[112]

The most well-known intelligence briefing in the history of the intelligence field is the United StatesPresident's Daily Brief (PDB), of which intelligence analysts have been assigned as briefers to thePresident of the United States over the years, to present the daily product of the largest intelligence community in the world.^[113] The PDB has existed for over half-a-century, and every US President has had different methods of consuming the intelligence. Some Presidents have preferred to arrange full briefing sessions with several people in the room and a question-and-answer session, while other Presidents have preferred to consume the PDB as a written product silently by the fireplace.^[113]

During his first term,Donald Trump notoriously refused to partake in many of the PDB's that had been tasked specifically for him, preferring to pass on this responsibility and give it to people more qualified, often because he could not understand the concepts that had already been simplified for him.^{[114][115][116]} Many people assumed that Trumpcould not read well enough to consume the written products, and on the rare occasions that he attended, he preferred to receive his briefings orally.^[117][118] He did look at the pictures.^[119] When he did attend, he would sometimes receive verifiable information that he dismissed immediately, preferring to believe foreign leaders over his own CIA staff, especially concerning an incident where Trump was informed that Russia had ordered bounties on US servicemembers stationed in Afghanistan.^{[120][121][122]} During his second term, he has nearly scrapped the PDB altogether.^[123]

The Chinese and the Russians have similar variations on the theme of the PDB, received atZhongnanhai and theKremlin.

In militaries, and especially in the world ofmilitary intelligence (MI), the consumers of large intelligence products are usually theGenerals andAdmirals in charge of theorder of battle or some form of military echelon. However, military intelligence is incorporated into every level of command, and clients are not limited to the highest ranks – evenButterbars andLandlubbers barely out of officer training school consume intelligence products when they are assigned to their units.^[124]

In thecorporate world, intelligence products are used for an even broader set of decisions than in the realm of governments and politicians. The primary client here is usually theC-Suitebusiness executive, or perhaps theBoard of directors of a large company.^[78] As opposed to the primary objective of public sector intelligence, which is mostly to gain an advantage over a perceived enemy, the objective the private sector is to serve the executive's agenda.^[126] Private intelligence often fails when executives do not understand the purpose of intelligence, and expect their intelligence analysts to perform predictive judgements, which are often outside of their core function.^[127]

Despite the fact that there are large private intelligence agencies that specialize in performing intelligence operations, most multinational corporations maintain some staff of corporate intelligence, sometimes a staff of only a few analysts.^[128]The Coca-Cola Company, for example, maintains theirGlobal Intelligence Division (GID), as of 2026 led byMatthew Howe. However, Coca Cola also hires private intelligence agencies such asStratfor to provide intelligence on potential oppositional forces, such as in 2007, when they hired Stratfor to investigate members ofPETA in Canada.^[129]

In what has often been calledmission creep, the leadingcriminal intelligence bureaus and departments in cities around the world often change their core mission set depending on whatArt Hulnick called thethreat du jour.^[130] Threat du jour, in this respect, follows that when the perceived threat against society wasCommunism, criminal intelligence units focused on suppressing Communist organizations. Similarly, when theUSSR was created and theOkhrana was dissolved, Russian criminal intelligence focused on suppressing what they called the Capitalist disease there. When that threat becameorganized crime, these units shifted to largely become gang units, and when narcotics became the threat du jour, those gang units became anti-narcotics task forces.

Today, criminal intelligence organizations have largely been absorbed intocounterterrorism bureaus, with terrorism becoming the new threat du jour.^[131] The same work might be performed, but around the world, more money and effort has been allocated to counterterrorism over standard intelligence collection since the start of theGlobal War On Terror. Specifically in the United States, however, that relationship goes back much further, to the 1980's, whenWilliam Colby created theCounterterrorism Task Force.^[132] London's formerSpecial Branch, for example, which was the single-largest municipal criminal intelligence branch in the world, was absorbed into theCounter Terrorism Command in 2006.^[133] Los Angeles's Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau was merged in 2010 with the former Special Operations Bureau to create the Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau.^[134] Chicago's Bureau of Organized Crime (which was designed to hunt gangsters like Al Capone), is now the Bureau of Counter Terrorism.^[70]

This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(January 2026)

Despite the fact that espionage is thousands of years old, the intelligence field as it is known today is roughly 100–200 years old. The original definition of intelligence (inEnglish) was as to be synonymous withjournalism and news, and has morphed and transformed into whatever uses it has today. Hence the name of many newspapers today still calledThe Intelligencer. At least by the 1600's in the English language,intelligence officers were categorized into several categories, to include spies, scouts, and intelligencers.^[135]

• Security sector governance and reform

• Intelligence agencies
• Espionage

• CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list
• CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN
• Articles proposed for merging from January 2026
• All articles proposed for merging
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles to be expanded from January 2026
• All articles to be expanded