“That operation was only made possible by a flawless intelligence picture, and that flawless intelligence picture was built on cyber operations enabled by our [Center of Cyber Intelligence] team,” CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis told the Billington Cybersecurity Conference, using Operation Absolute Resolve as a recent example of the agency’s changing approach.
Michael Ellis on Operation Absolute Resolve
Ellis said the CIA’s cyber teams “built the intelligence picture” that supported Operation Absolute Resolve and that this intelligence enabled U.S. special operations forces “to identify the location of Nicolás Maduro and apprehend him within four minutes of landing on the ground.” He provided no public details about the methods, systems or sources involved, and did not explain how cyber intelligence established Maduro’s location or how the agency confirmed that information prior to the mission. Reports from the operation — including statements by President Donald Trump — said power outages during the mission were the result of a cyberattack. Experts told CyberScoop afterward that cyber operations may have been involved, but that visible physical attacks included in the operation alone could plausibly explain the outages.
Center for Cyber Intelligence elevated to a mission center
Ellis used the operation as a rationale for elevating the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence to a full mission center. He said the change “has allowed us to both focus priority on the cyber mission as well as to better align resources around that mission.” According to Ellis, the mission-center status reduces the distance between cyber specialists and the officers who plan and carry out intelligence missions by placing cyber work directly inside the agency’s mission construct. Earlier this year, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the agency reorganized several acquisition and tech directorates to embrace emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing as they reshape “the reality of conflict and asymmetric warfare.”
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See what we buildDirectorate of Mission Systems and a new acquisition tempo
To accelerate technology delivery, the CIA created a Directorate of Mission Systems. Ellis described its guiding purpose as “to deliver tech to our workforce to enable mission rapidly and efficiently.” He said the agency previously took an average of two to three years to bring new technology into operational use; the agency has since set a six-month acquisition target and completed more than 400 purchases within that period. Ellis framed those changes as complementary: the cyber mission center organizes technical collection around intelligence targets, while Mission Systems supplies tools to support that work.
Artificial intelligence and operational speed
Ellis emphasized artificial intelligence as a central driver of the new tempo. He said AI can reduce tasks that once required “hundreds of hours of work” to a matter of hours, help analysts process large volumes of intelligence, identify patterns, and connect disparate information at speeds humans cannot match. “In cyber operations, it brings speed and scale that would be unimaginable without these AI tools,” he said, adding that AI increases the pressure to shorten acquisition and deployment timelines.
What this means for U.S. Special Forces, CIA cyber teams, and acquisition officials
- U.S. Special Forces and field operators: According to Ellis, rapid, cyber-enabled intelligence can produce near real‑time targeting information that shortens on‑the‑ground decision windows — for Operation Absolute Resolve he cited a four‑minute window between landing and apprehension.
- CIA cyber teams and analysts: Elevation to a mission center gives cyber specialists a direct organizational role in target-focused intelligence and closer coordination with analysts and field officers, but Ellis did not provide operational details about how cyber findings are validated before missions.
- Acquisition officials and technologists: The Directorate of Mission Systems and the six‑month acquisition target — backed by more than 400 purchases in the period Ellis described — establish a benchmark the agency will need to sustain as software, security systems and foreign networks continue to change rapidly.
Ellis tied a high-profile operational claim — rapid capture enabled by cyber-derived intelligence — to structural changes inside the agency: elevating cyber to mission-center status and speeding technology delivery through a dedicated directorate. He stressed AI as the force multiplier that makes both the close coordination and the compressed acquisition timelines necessary. The concrete next measures, according to the facts Ellis laid out, are whether the six‑month acquisition cadence and AI-enabled analytic workflows can be sustained and routinely applied to the missions the agency now says depend on them.
