INSIGHTS

What You Know Before the Interview

Why Access to Information Matters More Than Ever

By Kim Westbrook Strach and Chuck Stuber

There is a great deal of attention right now on how artificial intelligence can transform investigative work.

Much of that attention is warranted.

AI can surface patterns, identify anomalies, and process large volumes of information far more quickly than any individual ever could. Used well, it can help investigators focus their time and prioritize where to look.

But one thing has not changed.

The most valuable information in any investigation still comes from people.

Understanding what happened, why it happened, and whether it matters ultimately depends on conversations—on context, tone, timing, and the moment when something doesn’t quite fit and an experienced investigator knows to pause and ask one more question.

That part of the work remains constant.

What has changed is everything surrounding it.

We came to this understanding working together on public corruption matters involving individuals in positions of significant authority, including former governors, legislative leadership, and members of Congress. In those cases, the margin for error was small. The facts needed to be right, the timing needed to be right, and the information used to support a finding had to withstand scrutiny—not just internally, but in public proceedings where credibility could be challenged directly.

If the information was incomplete or misunderstood, the consequence was not simply delay.

It was that important information might never surface at all.

That reality shaped how we approached investigations.

Long before AI became part of the conversation, effective investigations depended on obtaining as complete a picture as possible before the first question was ever asked—relationships, financial activity, prior disclosures, timelines, and context that could inform what questions mattered and where inconsistencies might exist.

Today, the amount of information available has expanded dramatically.

There is more data than ever before. More records, more digital activity, more connections that can be identified and analyzed. AI and modern analytical tools can help investigators process and interpret that information at a scale that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago.

But those tools depend on access.

AI is most effective when information is:

• available
• contextualized
• connected
• and accessible in a timely way

When that is true, technology can significantly improve how investigators prepare, identify patterns, and focus their attention.

When it is not, its value is limited.

In practice, the challenge is rarely that information does not exist. It is that the information exists across systems that were never designed to work together.

Organizations increasingly rely on a collection of specialized systems—each designed to serve a specific operational purpose:

• reporting
• compliance
• administration
• workflow management
• Individually, many of these systems perform well.

Collectively, they often create gaps.

The information needed to understand a person’s activity, relationships, or behavior becomes fragmented across platforms, structured differently, and difficult to connect quickly enough to matter. Investigators spend time locating, reconciling, and assembling information before they can even begin to analyze it.

The problem is not a lack of data.

It is the inability to access and connect that data efficiently.

This becomes particularly important in environments where compliance, disclosure, and enforcement intersect. Systems are designed to capture information, but not necessarily to support investigation. The need to identify fraud, malfeasance, or compliance issues is often secondary, and only becomes urgent when something goes wrong.

By that point, the limitations of system design are exposed.

Over time, these experiences have shaped how we think about technology and system design itself. In many of the matters we encounter, the issue is not that information does not exist. It is that the information was never structured, connected, or made accessible in a way that supports investigation.

Thinking about investigative needs earlier—while systems are being designed—can significantly reduce the time, cost, and uncertainty involved when issues arise.

As organizations and jurisdictions continue to modernize, there is a natural focus on improving what systems can do—how they process, how they automate, and how they scale.

An equally important question is whether those systems reflect how investigations actually happen.

The goal is not to replace human judgment.

It is to support it.

The most effective investigations still depend on:

the ability to ask the right questions

and the ability to access the information needed to answer them

Technology cannot replace the investigator.

But when systems are designed correctly, it can ensure the investigator walks into the room knowing where the truth is most likely to be found.