The year 2025 will be remembered as the moment the chessboard of global power was irrevocably altered. This transformation isn’t being led by traditional superpowers alone, but by a diffuse and dynamic new force: non-state actors armed with agentic artificial intelligence. In the sprawling, borderless theater of the digital world, groups ranging from sophisticated hacktivist collectives and terrorist organizations to politically motivated movements are now wielding influence on a scale once reserved for nations.

This new era is defined by the rise of agentic AI—intelligent systems capable of perceiving their environment, making independent decisions, and executing complex tasks with minimal human oversight. The proliferation of this technology has effectively democratized the tools of geopolitical influence. As we stand on this new frontier, it is imperative to understand not just the technology itself, but how it is being weaponized to reshape our world.

The New Arsenal: Disinformation at Scale

For decades, orchestrating large-scale influence operations was a capital-intensive endeavor, the exclusive domain of state intelligence agencies. The explosion of open-source AI models and affordable cloud computing has shattered that paradigm. According to a report from the Brookings Institution, this accessibility has equipped non-state armed actors with capabilities that can rival those of governments, fundamentally changing the dynamics of conflict and influence.

Generative AI has become the engine of this new reality, enabling the creation of hyper-realistic and highly persuasive disinformation at an unprecedented velocity. Deepfake videos, synthetic audio, and AI-written text can be deployed to manipulate public discourse, incite social unrest, and erode the very foundation of trust in democratic institutions. The battle for narrative supremacy has entered a dangerous new phase where truth itself is the primary casualty.

The statistics emerging from modern conflicts are stark. A recent analysis of the Israel-Iran conflict found that one in five pieces of war-related disinformation that were fact-checked were AI-generated. The figure is even more alarming for visual media, where 41% of false visuals were created using artificial intelligence, as detailed in a report by TRENDS Research & Advisory. This demonstrates a strategic shift where synthetic content is no longer a novelty but a core component of information warfare.

These campaigns are not confined to major geopolitical flashpoints. We are witnessing an “internationalization of misinformation,” where deepfakes of globally recognized figures, such as former U.S. presidents, are used to endorse local political candidates in nations across Africa and Asia, injecting foreign influence in subtle yet powerful ways.

The Digital Battlefield: Agentic AI in Cyber Warfare

Beyond the war of words, non-state actors are leveraging agentic AI to execute cyberattacks of increasing sophistication and scale. AI-powered tools can now autonomously scan for, identify, and exploit vulnerabilities in critical national infrastructure, financial networks, and sensitive government systems.

The Microsoft 2025 Digital Defense Report highlights this alarming trend, noting that adversaries are using generative AI to scale social engineering attacks, automate lateral movement within compromised networks, and dynamically evade advanced security controls. This has fueled the growth of “cybercrime-as-a-service” platforms, which lower the technical barrier for malicious actors and have contributed to a significant surge in disruptive cyberattacks. The result is a landscape where ransomware attacks are becoming more frequent and aggressive, threatening everything from hospitals to energy grids.

Experts at Armis Labs have noted that AI is enabling nation-state actors to evolve their cyberwarfare tactics stealthily, but crucially, it also allows smaller nations and non-state groups to “elevate to near-peer cyber threats.” This leveling of the playing field means that a small, determined group can now pose a strategic threat to a nation’s security, a reality that security platforms are racing to address by integrating geopolitical intelligence into their threat analysis.

Undermining Democracy: AI and Election Integrity

Elections have become a primary target for non-state actors wielding agentic AI. Their objective is often not to install a specific candidate, but to achieve a more insidious goal: to shatter public faith in the democratic process itself. By inundating the information ecosystem with deepfakes, automated propaganda, and micro-targeted divisive content, these groups amplify polarization and sow doubt about the legitimacy of electoral outcomes.

The 2025 Irish presidential election served as a chilling case study, where a convincing deepfake video of a leading candidate announcing her withdrawal from the race went viral just before polling day. Although the candidate ultimately prevailed, the incident underscored the immense potential for AI-driven deception to mislead voters and disrupt a cornerstone of democracy.

These AI campaigns are often surgically precise, exploiting existing societal fissures. In recent elections across India, Indonesia, and Mexico, AI was used to generate and disseminate defamatory images of female candidates, weaponizing misogynistic stereotypes to damage their campaigns. This tactic illustrates how agentic AI can be used to disproportionately target and harm women, minorities, and other marginalized communities in the political sphere. The long-term risk, as noted by global organizations like Chatham House, is the systemic erosion of trust, which can paralyze a society’s ability to respond to crises and function effectively.

The Geopolitical Fallout: A New Era of Hybrid Warfare

The ascent of the AI-empowered non-state actor is ushering in an era of profound geopolitical instability. It challenges the traditional state-centric framework of international relations, where power was once measured in military and economic might. We are now deeply entrenched in a “hybrid warfare” model, where non-kinetic assaults like disinformation and cyberattacks are deployed to achieve strategic goals without the cost and risk of conventional military conflict.

This creates a murky and unpredictable security environment where the lines between state-sponsored operations and the actions of independent groups become dangerously blurred. A key feature of this new landscape is the weaponization of digital narratives. For example, according to analysis from JNS.org, sophisticated digital influence operations are employing advanced AI and social media algorithms to methodically reshape public opinion in Western nations, with the long-term strategic aim of delegitimizing states like Israel. These are not crude propaganda efforts; they are targeted, multi-faceted campaigns designed to exploit the very openness of democratic societies. As Paul Scharre from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has articulated, the AI revolution is changing the character of warfare itself.

Charting a Course Forward: Countering the Agentic Threat

Confronting the challenge posed by non-state actors with agentic AI demands a sophisticated, multi-layered response. Outright bans on AI development are not only impractical but likely impossible, given the technology’s open and diffuse nature. The path forward lies in a strategic combination of technological innovation, intelligent regulation, and widespread public education.

Public-private partnerships are critical for embedding security and ethical restrictions into the commercial AI tools that can be easily misused. Concurrently, there is a pressing need for international cooperation to establish clear norms and regulations governing the responsible development and deployment of AI, building on frameworks like the EU’s AI Act.

Furthermore, investing heavily in digital and media literacy is one of our most potent defenses. Empowering citizens with the skills to critically assess information and identify AI-generated content can build societal resilience. This includes proactive “pre-bunking” strategies that inoculate the public with factual information before waves of disinformation can take hold.

Finally, it is essential to remember that AI is a dual-use technology. The same tools used for malicious ends can be harnessed for defense. As described by the AI World Journal, AI is already being used to detect manipulated media, trace the origins of fraudulent claims, and map the networks of inauthentic accounts that spread propaganda. The ultimate challenge, as highlighted by a RAND Corporation commentary, is to balance innovation with mitigation.

The rise of agentic AI has opened a new frontier of power, accessible to a broader and more diverse set of actors than ever before. In 2025, our geopolitical reality is being actively co-authored by these new players. To navigate this complex future, we must first understand their methods, their motivations, and their profound impact on the world stage.

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References:

• trendsresearch.org
• brookings.edu
• brookings.edu
• cnas.org
• ai-2027.com
• morningstar.com
• rand.org
• industrialcyber.co
• jns.org
• aiworldjournal.com
• iiss.org
• youtube.com
• youtube.com
• chathamhouse.org
• orfonline.org
• youtube.com
• analysis of long-term geopolitical destabilization by AI-powered non-state actors