I started my career tracking cyber attackers at the NSA just before 9/11. Over the next 17 years, I saw how the right intelligence tools, used at the right time, could change the course of history. I helped lead the technical side of counterterrorism efforts and saw firsthand how critical it was to cut through noise, connect complex dots, and do it fast.

That’s the idea behind TimePilot.

We built it because investigators today are drowning in data and most tools don’t actually help with that. They generate reports. They search for keywords. But they don’t understand context, and they certainly don’t point you straight to evidence.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Question: "Are there any mentions of black ninjas in the 9/11 Commission Report?”

We asked this question across several leading LLMs: ChatGPT, Grok, and Claude. All of them confidently said no. They searched the internet, didn’t find a match, and shut the door.

But here’s what TimePilot found within seconds:

“You know, it would scare the shit out of al-Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp.”

— President Clinton, as quoted in the official 9/11 Commission Report, page 189

This wasn’t just a rumor or paraphrase—it was real, verifiable, and buried in 500+ pages of official documentation that has been on the internet for over 20 years. Only TimePilot surfaced it accurately, with the full quote and page number from the source PDF.

That’s the difference.

Why It Matters

Now, most investigators aren’t combing the 9/11 Commission Report every day, but they are facing thousands of pages of case files, cell phone dumps, GPS pings, social media messages, and jail call transcripts. They’re being asked to find a single pattern, phrase, or moment that changes the trajectory of an investigation.

Keyword search won’t get you there.

Even the best open-source AI models aren’t designed for this.

You need a tool that was built specifically to help with the challenges investigators face when it comes to digital evidence. This is why we built TimePilot. It offers a closed environment that only searches your case files. It doesn’t go outside your case files. This is the kind of precision investigators need. It doesn’t matter how massive your dataset is. TimePilot stays focused on what’s inside.

What This Case Study Proves

The “black ninjas” quote is just one example, but it exposes the limitations of other investigative methods:

• Generic AI models can’t be trusted with real evidence: They miss things, hallucinate, or confidently say “no” when the answer is buried just one layer deeper.

• Manual processes are slow and siloed: Investigators spend countless hours cross-referencing systems or trying to piece together the case manually.

• TimePilot changes the game: It ingests massive datasets, surfaces key evidence, and shows you exactly where it came from within seconds.

A Tool Built from Experience

I didn’t build TimePilot as a tech demo. I built it because I spent 17 years on the inside watching how high-stakes investigations actually work, and how much time gets lost without the right tools.

TimePilot puts that power in the hands of investigators. If you're sifting through mountains of digital evidence, you need more than ctrl+f. And you certainly need an AI-powered tool that is actually going to give you the right answer.