The Pentagon is angling to introduce artificial intelligence across its workforce within nine months following the reorganization of its key AI office.
Emil Michael, under secretary of defense for research and engineering at the Department of Defense, talked about the agency’s plans for introducing AI to its operations as it continues its modernization journey.
“We want to have an AI capability on every desktop — 3 million desktops — in six or nine months,” Michael said during a Politico event on Tuesday. “We want to have it focus on applications for corporate use cases like efficiency, like you would use in your own company … for intelligence and for warfighting.”
This announcement follows the recent shakeups and restructuring of the Pentagon’s main artificial intelligence office. A senior defense official said the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office will serve as a new addition to the department’s research portfolio.
Michael also said he is “excited” about the restructured CDAO, adding that its new role will pivot to a focus on research that is similar to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Missile Defense Agency. This change is intended to enhance research and engineering priorities that will help advance AI for use by the armed forces and not take agency focus away from AI deployment and innovation.
“To add AI to that portfolio means it gets a lot of muscle to it,” he said. “So I’m spending at least a third of my time –– maybe half –– rethinking how the AI deployment strategy is going to be at DOD.”
Applications coming out of the CDAO and related agencies will then be tailored to corporate workloads, such as efficiency-related work, according to Michael, along with intelligence and warfighting needs.
The Pentagon first stood up the CDAO and brought on its first chief digital and artificial intelligence officer in 2022 to advance the agency’s AI efforts.
The restructuring of the CDAO this year garnered attention due to its pivotal role in investigating the defense applications of emerging technologies and defense acquisition activities. Job cuts within the office added another layer of concern, with reports estimating a 60% reduction in the CDAO workforce.
