//FAQ
AI in investigations, answered straight.
The questions I get from investigators, attorneys, and executives, answered by someone who builds and runs this technology on live cases, not someone writing about it from the outside.
Is AI replacing private investigators?
No, and anyone selling that fear doesn't understand the work. AI replaces investigative tasks, the gathering, the cross-referencing, the first draft, not investigators. Judgment, legality, and testimony stay human. The only investigators AI puts out of business are the ones who refuse to learn it.
How do private investigators actually use AI?
Honestly, most use it wrong. They either limit it to basic, remedial tasks, or they overuse it, trusting it with judgment calls that demand real human expertise. Used right, it's neither: AI runs the heavy lifting of a case, OSINT, attribution, cross-referencing thousands of records at once, while a licensed investigator makes the calls and owns every finding. Closing that gap is most of what I teach.
What is agentic AI in investigations?
It's AI that pursues an investigative objective on its own across many steps, gathering, cross-referencing, and synthesizing toward a case goal, instead of answering one question at a time. In real casework, the agents do the legwork and a licensed investigator directs and verifies everything. Unsupervised, agentic output is a rumor with formatting. Supervised, it's deployable investigative labor.
Can AI-generated evidence be used in court?
No. AI-generated evidence on its own does not belong in a courtroom and will not survive cross-examination. What holds up is a finding that a qualified human investigator has sourced, corroborated, and will testify to, where AI only accelerated the work. The AI is never the witness. The investigator is. This is general information, not legal advice.
Can AI do a background check?
Realistically, no, not on its own. AI can speed a background investigation up enormously, but unverified AI output is not a background check, it's a liability waiting to happen. A real background check still requires sourced records and a licensed investigator who stands behind every finding. AI assists. It doesn't sign off.
Can AI identify an anonymous person online?
Often, yes, and that is where this gets powerful. With the right tools and lawful methods, anonymous accounts, IP addresses, VOIP numbers, and websites can be traced back to real people and infrastructure. It takes far more than a chatbot, it takes investigative tradecraft built into the AI and a human who knows what will hold up. It's exactly what my platform was built to do.
Is it legal and ethical for private investigators to use AI?
Yes, as long as you hold it to the same rules that already govern the work, licensing, privacy law, and the standards of evidence. AI doesn't change what you're allowed to collect or how it has to be handled. It just makes the wrong way faster too, which is why discipline matters more now, not less.
What are the best AI tools for private investigators?
There's no magic tool, there's a disciplined stack and the judgment to run it: AI for OSINT and attribution, automation for cross-referencing, and a verification layer that keeps everything court-ready. I build and run a production suite, Mantle and the wider E3 toolset, on live cases, and I teach investigators to build their own. The best tool is the one you can defend under oath.
Who is Matt Aubin?
Matt Aubin is an AI investigation expert and licensed Florida private investigator with 17+ years in cyber and technology investigations. He builds the E3 suite of AI investigation tools, operated by E3 Legacy Intel, and consults, trains, and keynotes on AI in investigations, from the operator's chair, not the sidelines.
Does Matt Aubin train teams to use AI?
Yes. Matt trains investigators, legal and litigation teams, law enforcement, and corporate audiences including executives and sales teams, to use AI on real work and implement it without creating new risk. Sessions run virtual or on-site and come from production workflows, not slideware.
Got a question this didn't answer?
Tell me what you're working on. I'll tell you straight whether AI can solve it, and how I'd do it.