For the first time in its volatile history, Pakistan topped the Global Terrorism Index this year, recording 1,045 terror incidents and 1,139 related deaths in 2025. The fatalities have risen further in 2026, with the third quarter of the ongoing year showing an 83 percent hike in terrorism-linked deaths as compared to the second quarter. 

This surge comes amid external security woes. Last year, Pakistan and India came the closest that they have to a full-fledged war since the turn of the century, and reportedly to the brink of nuclear war. Pakistan is also engaged in persistent cross-border clashes with Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the ongoing Iran-U.S. war is reconfiguring militancy in Balochistan, after Islamabad and Tehran exchanged drone and missile strikes on each other’s territories in 2024. 

Faced with these multipronged challenges, Pakistan has gradually incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) into its security strategy.

Last year, Pakistan unveiled its National Artificial Intelligence Policy 2025 to regulate AI usage. Pakistan’s military forces have already deployed AI to enhance their capabilities through research units, such as the Army Center of Emerging Technologies and the Pakistan Air Force-run Center for Artificial Intelligence and Computing (CENTAIC). 

Pakistan has also unveiled a gamut of AI-enabled military weapons, including equipment manufactured by the state-owned Global Industrial & Defense Solutions (GIDS). These include unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), such as Shahpar-II, and the Spider Anti-UAV system. Pakistan and India used numerous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the 2025 clashes, with Islamabad deploying YIHA-III drones manufactured by the Turkish defense contractor Baykar in addition to Shahpar-II. 

Drones are being extensively used along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border according to Pakistan Army sources. “We are facing the double threat – from the Afghan Taliban, and local terrorist groups – and we are countering these by using drones for surveilling and also for striking targets, especially in remote areas,” an official working with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s newly formed Police UAV Division told The Diplomat.

Military sources reveal that Pakistan is also close to deploying robots. “Law enforcement authorities already have robots in bomb disposal units. Robots are also performing reconnaissance tasks, including in border areas. Now we are working on using robots to lead clearance operations, along with transporting ammunition and supplies in military operations in [Khyber] Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” said a senior officer.

The security agencies have already run drills with Chinese robotic wolves. There are plans to produce similar machines indigenously, as well as humanoid and bipedal robots.

“To keep pace with India, and to nullify terrorist groups, we are always integrating new technologies in military and law enforcement agencies. However, the biggest challenge is developing our capacity due to the lack of resources and the economic challenges,” Lieutenant General Talat Masood, a former secretary of Pakistan’s Ministry of Defense Production, told The Diplomat. In this regard, Pakistan continues to benefit from Chinese architectural support for CENTAIC. Beijing is also helping Islamabad use facial recognition technology, as Pakistani security agencies gradually expand its deployment to sensitive areas, including border checkpoints and terror hotspots.

Along with fortifying security capacities, however, the Pakistani state is also using these AI-powered technologies to maintain the military establishment’s stranglehold and quell any regional or political dissent. The Diplomat has learned that the military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), is allocating resources for “narrative building.” In addition to producing various forms of media, the ISPR also employs tech professionals to engage in countering what the establishment deems to be “anti-state propaganda,” a misnomer for critiques of the armed forces, the country’s military leadership, and their policies. 

“A good chunk of money is going into algorithmic filtering and monitoring, and tools are being used to erase social media anonymity and target individuals accordingly. Many professionals in the IT sector and the media industry are working on these projects,” revealed a senior digital media professional working at one of Pakistan’s largest media houses. 

The investment to “counter anti-state propaganda” has significantly increased following the ouster of former premier Imran Khan in 2022. The ensuing anti-army sentiment has meant that Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and its activists, have especially been under the gun. However, the same digital tools are being wielded to suppress dissidents in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. 

Similarly, Pakistani citizens are vulnerable to Islamist persecution, with digital blasphemy laws still providing allowance for the use of modern technology to fatally impose antediluvian punishments. This is in stark contrast with the image of moderation and reform that the Pakistani governments wants to show in front of the global audiences, especially as part of its recent role as the mediator between the U.S. and Iran.

A lack of transparency allows the state and the military establishment to deploy technology and AI beyond the realms of the already loosely defined “national security.” The National Security Policy 2022-2026 “has no mention of Artificial Intelligence,” said security analyst Abdullah Khan, the managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. “How can we deliberate over its pros and cons, when there is no official declaration of how these technologies are being used?” 

Lieutenant General Talat Masood, the former Ministry of Defense Production secretary, said that transparency can only be ensured, and any overreach into the domain into fundamental rights can only be nullified, by having credible checks on the abuse of power. “The command needs to be held by a representative civilian government, which would require a revamp of the state’s power structure, so that the military and civilian can keep charge of their respective domains,” he said.

Those who defend the state’s position argue that compromising on certain freedoms is part and parcel of counterterror policymaking, especially when the situation is as grave as the one Pakistan faces today. But critics maintain that any compromises need to be justified with successful outcomes of technology and AI incorporation. So far, that hasn’t happened.

“All terror trends have increased over the past five years. There are hardly any counterterror successes for us to gauge,” said Khan of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. “[The state] is currently in the responsive mode, whereas militants are in the offensive mode” when it comes to using technology.

“We need to change that, and enhance our own capacities beyond intelligence gathering and monitoring. When it comes to actual incorporation of technology in counterterror operations, we are still at the infancy stage,” he added.

As technology impacts the state’s role as a guarantor of its citizens’ security and freedom, it is evident that Pakistan is struggling on both fronts. And it is likely to stay that way, as long as the omnipotent military establishment continues to arbitrarily impose its whims.