Clearview AI tested AI tool that maps suspects' online lives, Wired reports

September 10, 2026 at 03:00 PM2 min

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Clearview AI has built and tested an experimental AI analyst assistant called InquiryIQ, Wired reports. The tool is designed to automatically search the web and assemble profiles of people identified through Clearview's face recognition. Clearview says the prototype has never been used by law enforcement and is not planned for release in its current form.

Key Facts

InquiryIQ is an unreleased prototype that automatically searches the web and assembles profiles with possible employers, aliases, associates, and physical characteristics.
The tool's interface states that supplying age, gender, and race can help the system make "smarter decisions" during searches.
Clearview tested a model from SpaceXAI, the Elon Musk company behind Grok, to power InquiryIQ's decisions.
CEO Amos Kyler says no law enforcement user has ever used InquiryIQ and the model options were included for engineering comparison during testing.

InquiryIQ Prototype

Clearview AI has quietly built and tested an experimental AI "analyst assistant" called InquiryIQ, according to Wired. The unreleased tool is designed to take details from a Clearview search and automatically fan out across the web, opening webpages, analyzing images, and assembling findings into a profile. The profile can include possible employers, aliases, associates, and physical characteristics of a person police are investigating. InquiryIQ's interface states that supplying age, gender, and race can help the system make "smarter decisions" as it searches, according to code analyzed by Wired.

SpaceXAI Model Testing

One of the models Clearview tested to power InquiryIQ's decisions comes from SpaceXAI, the Elon Musk company behind Grok. SpaceX and xAI merged in February, and Musk has pitched Grok as an alternative to supposedly "woke" AI systems. It is unclear how SpaceXAI would use demographic inputs or how they might shape its output, and Clearview declined to speculate. CEO Amos Kyler says the SpaceXAI and other model options visible in the interface were included so Clearview's engineers could compare how different models performed during testing, not so police could choose which model ran the research.

Company Response

Clearview tells Wired that InquiryIQ is a prototype that has never been pitched or shipped to customers and is not currently planned for release in its present form. The company disputes that the tool amounts to an automated investigator, describing it instead as a limited way to automate the web searches detectives already perform. In an interview, CEO Amos Kyler said, "No law enforcement user has ever used it, period."