In the current public debates around artificial intelligence, the dominant narratives are those of the new technologies being a threat to democracy, enabling disinformation, manipulation and deception. But the same technology is also giving journalists, researchers and civil society organizations new ways to investigate war crimes, uncover influence operations and solve cases that would otherwise be nearly impossible.
When Russian authorities published a photograph of a boy available for adoption on a Russian website, few would have recognized him. But journalists at the Ukrainian outlet Texty.org.ua did.
Using a methodology that combined facial recognition algorithms with extensive manual verification, the newsroom matched the boy’s photograph with images from Ukraine’s database of missing children. Their investigation found that the child was most likely a Ukrainian boy from the occupied Kherson region whose father had died after they were displaced to Russia. The investigation later confirmed the match through additional reporting, including Russian media reports and testimony from his former teacher.
The investigation, carried out together with the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), was one of the first to demonstrate how artificial intelligence can help journalists investigate one of the most difficult consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: the disappearance and forced transfer of Ukrainian children.
A New Way to Investigate
While artificial intelligence is often discussed in the context of deepfakes, automated propaganda, and the spread of disinformation, the same technology is increasingly becoming an important tool for journalists, researchers and civil society organizations. Beyond improving productivity, AI is making investigations possible that would have been nearly impossible to conduct manually.
“I still advocate more for AI for good,” said Nataliia Romanyshyn, AI specialist at Texty.org.ua, who worked on the investigation on missing children. “The cases where we can find children or spot disinformation campaigns online much more easily than we could without AI fascinate me.”
Romanyshyn said the investigation was emotionally demanding because every potential match represented a child separated from their home and identity.
“I was in two minds whether I would be happy to get results or whether I would be happier to find zero matches,” she said. “But if it’s for a good cause, I’m happy.”
Investigating Influence Operations
AI is also transforming how organizations investigate coordinated influence operations online.
Tomáš Kriššák, Senior Strategic Communications Consultant at Gerulata Technologies, said AI-powered analytical tools are helping researchers understand increasingly complex information environments, identify coordinated manipulation campaigns and detect patterns that would be difficult to uncover manually.
“Artificial intelligence is giving us a lot of opportunities to better understand the information space and therefore be better prepared for the challenges that are on the horizon,” Kriššák said.
According to him, technical tools are becoming indispensable as online information manipulation grows in scale and sophistication.
“Without these technical tools that help us understand the nature of the information space, we are nowhere close to being able to adapt to the near future,” he said, warning that AI-generated content is already reshaping the online environment, often without users realizing it was produced by artificial intelligence.
The User Makes the Difference
Both experts stressed that artificial intelligence itself is neither inherently beneficial nor harmful. Like previous technological breakthroughs, its impact depends on how it is used.
Romanyshyn compared AI to cars: a transformative technology that also carries risks but is governed through regulation, licensing and accountability rather than rejection.
The same AI models that can generate convincing disinformation can also help expose coordinated propaganda, analyze enormous datasets, uncover corruption or locate missing people. As public debate continues to focus on AI’s dangers, examples like the investigation into missing Ukrainian children show that the technology is already strengthening investigative journalism and helping defend democratic societies.
