Revolutionizing Investigations: The Future of Generative AI in Assisting Law Enforcement to Solve Crimes Faster
Like any advent of new technology, the recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) came with a steep learning curve. In the fall of 2022, when user-friendly AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT began quickly generating content from simple prompts, it astonished even the most tech-savvy among us and created excitement around imagining what more AI and humans could accomplish. As adoption expands, it’s important to marvel at how much it will assist law enforcement in their investigations to solve crimes faster.
When nearly every crime committed leaves a digital footprint, the volume of digital evidence is growing exponentially. Yet the number of investigators to comb through that evidence remains flat or in some agencies, is decreasing. Currently, an average personal device contains hundreds of thousands of messages (text and audio), images and videos, which will only increase as standard data volumes grow into the terabyte range. As investigators must search through all of this digital evidence, greater resources and time to not only cross-correlate multiple data formats but also to interpret and take appropriate action on any investigative lead.
To meet that challenge, AI capabilities are becoming increasingly prevalent in law enforcement workflows to speed up evidence analysis and improve efficiency. Utilizing Generative AI (GenAI) features in particular, with the ability to instantaneously generate contextual summaries from massive datasets to assist law enforcement, is poised to be a key force multiplier in advancing and solving cases.
Insights into Law Enforcement’s Perception of AI
The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the landscape of digital investigations. According to Cellebrite’s 2025 Industry Trends Survey for Law Enforcement, which includes responses from more than 2,000 law enforcement professionals around the world, 61% view AI as a valuable tool for digital forensics and investigations and are confident that it can improve efficiency and accuracy and uncover hidden evidence.
What’s more, 9 in 10 respondents believe that AI can positively impact digital investigations. About 90% say the technology can help provide improved pattern recognition and anomaly detection in digital evidence. The respondents also believe AI can speed up data analysis, with 86% agreeing that it can quickly analyze vast amounts of data to surface relevant evidence faster.
A History of AI Innovations for Digital Investigations
AI may be newer to the masses, yet since 2015, Cellebrite has integrated AI, particularly machine learning, into its digital investigative solutions. Starting with image classification in its Inseyets Physical Analyzer (PA) software, the company expanded to language analysis, helping detect relevant investigative leads. In 2018, Cellebrite introduced Pathfinder, an AI-powered solution that quickly identifies patterns and connections across large datasets, streamlining complex investigations that often include a multitude of devices. In what would have taken hours or days in manual work, AI-powered solutions connect the dots in mere minutes.
What’s Ahead for AI in Digital Investigations
Beyond machine learning, Cellebrite’s team is hard at work testing generative AI tools within Guardian, Cellebrite’s advanced evidence management solution that helps law enforcement easily compile and share digital evidence.
Incorporating GenAI capabilities into a workflow means having an assistant that helps summarize and contextualize unstructured data to form a more complete picture. GenAI can help reduce the manual tasks that are commonplace in investigations today, such as sifting through such as sifting through months of texts line by line without sufficient context or deciphering intent from web browsing history. The technology includes features that can summarize such data instantly, while providing keywords and thematic direction, which saves investigators time, giving them the upper hand to steer their investigative strategy in the most appropriate direction. All of this is done to assist the human who is fully in charge of parsing the data.
The application of GenAI features enables law enforcement practitioners to simplify their process. Instead of trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, the GenAI acts as an assistant and guide, which can easily change direction upon a person’s own experience, perspective and expertise.
As a leader in the digital investigative space, Cellebrite GenAI technology – slated to be generally available to all customers in the first half of 2025 – will help inform the course of investigations for practitioners, saving time and guiding them to ask questions they may have not previously considered. This ensures digital evidence is more accessible, actionable and defensible and ultimately accelerates the path to justice.
About the Author
Ronnen Armon oversees Cellebrite’s solutions, products and technology, including R&D, Product Business Management and CTO domains. Ronnen brings a tremendous background and years of experience in enterprise software. He previously led R&D at Mercury for almost four years, and later became VP and GM for Hewlett Packard’s BTO team (Business Technology Optimization), overseeing Products and R&D.
Ronnen also co-founded Capriza, a no-code native SaaS mobility platform that simplified collaboration as well as integration with legacy applications and platforms. With Capriza, Ronnen initially led Products and R&D until he became their CEO.
Ronnen holds a BSC degree in Computer Science and Industrial Engineering, and a MA degree in System Analysis and Operations Research, both from the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology.