Cross-cutting collaboration vital as intelligence threats grow more networked

Today’s intelligence professional is faced with increasingly interconnected threats, mounting data volumes and workforce strain. In this article, i2 Group’s Nadia Tuominen makes the case for breaking down silos and building practitioner communities that enable collaboration and mutual learning 

Threats such as criminal networks and terrorist movements do not always fit compliantly into a neatly structured organizational chart. If only it were that easy. Criminal activity can be coordinated across borders and jurisdictions in ways that public agencies operating within those same boundaries can sometimes only envy. Networks can operate dynamically and successfully, both within themselves and in collaboration with other networks, in a manner that seems chaotic to those expecting hierarchy and order.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 found that cybercrime ecosystems have grown more specialized and interconnected, with adversaries using crime-as-a-service offerings and shared infrastructure to move faster than the agencies chasing them. Of course, this comes as no surprise to entities such as Europol who were flagging the crime-as-a-service threat as far back as 2017. Their latest Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA) 2025 continues to emphasise the flexibility and resilience of criminal networks, now aided further by the latest technological developments around Artificial Intelligence.

I, as many others, believe the intelligence community needs to mirror that same instinct to work across organisational and jurisdictional boundaries, exploiting technology to our greatest advantage. . Collectively, we intelligence professionals, and those disciplines we work alongside, should and can stay two steps ahead by collaborating for the greater good.

To that end , intelligence leaders must evaluate whether their organisational structures encourage or inhibit collaboration across functions and sectors. Examine whether your analysts, investigators, cyber specialists and operational teams are routinely sharing insights. Are intelligence workflows encouraging multidisciplinary participation? If the answer is no, critical decisions from intelligence are not informed by multiple perspectives. And such silos can prevent teams from identifying important connections that could improve situational awareness and decision-making.

Collaboration matters because modern intelligence, in its ever-increasing complexity, rarely fits neatly into a single category. Consider a sophisticated fraud ring, for example. This will impact financial transactions, may involve insider threats, have regulatory implications, cause operational disruptions and risk reputational damage. No single discipline in an organisation possesses all the expertise necessary to understand the full scope of such events and manage those different risks. The organisations that identify opportunities to incorporate diverse perspectives into intelligence workflows will arguably be more successful.

Different teams ask different questions and evaluate information through different lenses. Bringing those perspectives together tends to produce a stronger read on what’s happening and helps close the blind spots that isolated teams tend to miss.

This belief, in the power of collaboration to make sense of complex threats, is behind i2 Amplify.

Amplify is a new practitioner community for i2 Group customers that brings analysts, investigators, technologists and intelligence leaders into the same conversation. Discussions tend to stay away from case details and operational specifics, focusing instead on the methods, challenges, and ideas practitioners pick up on the job. All these people in different roles, sectors, and continents can learn from one another, share experiences and together strengthen the craft of intelligence.

This community is now making it possible for practitioners to borrow solutions other organisations, in completely different parts of the world, have already tested instead of starting from a blank page every time. As threats grow more networked, information grows more abundant and specialised expertise gets harder to retain and develop, the ability to connect people across disciplines and sectors is turning into one of the more valuable capabilities we, in intelligence analytics, can build.

Amplify is a safe space for our customer community to connect with peers, discover practical techniques and gain insights from others that will help you work smarter and faster. It is your space to grow your expertise and influence the evolution of i2 solutions. More than ever, collaboration will be essential to tackling the increasingly complex threats we face.