Narrative Intelligence: Separate Signal from Noise

Speaker(s): Griffith, G. (EdgeTheory)

Date: 15 July 2021

Speaker Session Summary

SMA hosted a speaker session Mr. Greg Griffith (Chief Product Officer & Co-founder, EdgeTheory) as a part of its SMA IIJO Speaker Series.

EdgeTheory’s methodology and technology combines human analysis and artificial intelligence to help people understand the theories, conversations, and narratives that shape their world. Mr. Griffith emphasized that people have been having conversations since the beginning of time; it’s the mediums through which conversations happen that are what changes. Furthermore, he argued that conversation is either an actor’s biggest asset or a liability in achieving their objectives. For an actor to effectively use conversation, they must understand their chosen form of communication, understand who is being influenced, and potentially control the narratives around them. 

EdgeTheory’s approach has defensive and offensive capabilities, however, this presentation focused on the defensive application of EdgeTheory’s technology, Xenon. Xenon focuses on narrative intelligence or the study of how media narratives grow and spread. Xenon is focused on: a) stories in the media, b) how they affect national interests, and c) how manipulation of narratives is happening and by whom. Mr. Griffith concluded his presentation by stating that Xenon’s clients gave positive reviews of the service, highlighting time savings, appreciation that the software is agnostic and unbiased, and users felt that the software effectively cut through noise created by media.

Speaker Session Recording

Note: We are aware that many government IT providers have blocked access to YouTube from government machines during the pandemic in response to bandwidth limitations. We recommend viewing the recording on YouTube from a non-government computer or listening to the audio file (below), if you are in this position.