MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli on AI, disinfo and Russia
MI6’s new chief, Blaise Metreweli, used a rare public speech published by the UK government on 15 December 2025 to explain how the Service is thinking about power, technology and trust. If you teach or study politics or media, this is one to save: it shows why human choices still steer events even when code and data feel overwhelming.
We start with a quick map of who does what. MI6 - the Secret Intelligence Service - collects intelligence overseas. MI5 keeps people safe in the UK. GCHQ focuses on signals intelligence and cyber. The famous HQ you know from films is a symbol, but most MI6 work happens out of sight: officers recruit and run agents who share secrets to keep the UK and its allies safer.
Metreweli frames the moment around human agency: the idea that people, not machines, decide how technology is used and how conflict is managed. He argues that even in a faster, more dangerous and tech‑mediated world, listening, empathy and courage can head off violence. Conflict, he says, is not inevitable.
A short biographical note helps you place the messenger. He grew up abroad, studied anthropology, psychology and AI, and has spent nearly three decades recruiting and running agents, including in war zones. He also served as ‘Q’, turning emerging technologies from threats into tools - a background that clearly shapes how he thinks about AI, data and risk.
The tech story is double‑edged. Advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum computing can speed medical breakthroughs and clean energy, yet the same advances can scale cyber attacks, make drones more lethal and create new tools of control. As power shifts from states to companies and sometimes to individuals, code written by private actors can feel as consequential as state policy.
The information space is now part of the contest. Metreweli warns that false stories can outrun facts, feeds flatter our biases and a shared sense of truth wears thin. For students, this is the internet you live in. What this means: check the source, look for evidence, and notice when a post pulls an emotional lever - fear, outrage, disgust - before offering proof.
On threats, he chooses to dwell on Russia. He calls Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine expansionist and revisionist, says he is horrified that hundreds of thousands have died, and promises the UK’s support for Ukraine will endure. Alongside the fighting, he says Russia operates in the grey zone - cyber hits on infrastructure, drones near airports and bases, hostile acts at and under sea, suspected arson and sabotage, and propaganda designed to prise open social fractures. He adds that the government is sanctioning Russian media outlets that push Kremlin narratives.
China also features, but as analysis rather than alarm. MI6’s job, he says, is to keep informing the government’s understanding of China’s rise and the security choices it creates for a tech‑shaped, multipolar century.
Response, not just description, is the theme. He wants MI6 to help shape outcomes, not only map them. That means tighter partnerships at home with MI5, GCHQ, defence and diplomacy; deeper work with allies such as the Five Eyes, the E3, the EU and NATO; and quiet collaboration with partners who cannot be named. In a digital fight, no organisation can prevail alone.
Technology will sit beside, not above, people. MI6 plans to use AI to augment judgement rather than replace it, and to make coding fluency - including languages like Python - as normal as language skills. Metreweli talks about recruiting linguists, case officers, engineers, data scientists and behavioural experts, and about empowering creative thinkers who challenge assumptions and act decisively.
Ethics and restraint run through the speech. He promises boldness with care, calculated risk where the prize is clear, and a refusal to mirror the tactics of opponents. He sets the Service’s values as courage, creativity, respect and integrity, and argues that accountability and public trust are not handbrakes but the basis for legitimacy in a democracy.
Society has homework too. Schools and universities can teach media literacy that sticks: slow down before sharing, compare sources, and ask who benefits from a claim. Metreweli also expresses solidarity with Australia after an antisemitic terrorist attack over the weekend of 13–14 December 2025 - a stark reminder that hateful ideas travel fast and that communities need both protection and care.
He closes by promising more openness from MI6 - speaking publicly more often and widening who they recruit - without revealing what must stay secret. For classrooms, the takeaways are practical: understand the difference between MI6, MI5 and GCHQ; define the grey zone in plain English; trace how AI can both protect and harm; and debate how a free society balances secrecy, oversight and rights. If you carry one idea into your next lesson or seminar, make it this: algorithms process; humans decide.