Lauren Knausenberger, chief information officer for the Department of the Air Force, said the service branch must intensify the adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to further automate its manual processes and maintain dominance over competitors, DefenseNews reported Thursday.
“If we tried to do everything today manually, leveraging the same processes that we always have, we’re not going to have the speed that we need for any of our kill chains,” asserted Knausenberger, a 2022 Wash100 awardee.
According to Knausenberger, the Air Force is developing AI for multiple applications, including “some on the battlefield” and “some embedded in things that we are building today.”
AI serves as the foundation of the Advanced Battle Management System, the Air Force’s contribution to the Department of Defense’s Joint All Domain Command and Control initiative.
In September, the service branch’s AFWERX innovation arm released a request for information for a new Prime program that seeks to advance the development of commercial autonomy technologies for military applications.
“Our secretary has said a few times that in the future, we expect AI to just be a part of all of our weapons platforms,” Knausenberger said.
GovCon Wire Events will hold the 3rd Annual AF IT Modernization and Transformation Forum on March 21, 2023, to discuss the service branch’s digital modernization initiatives and priorities. The forum will feature Knausenberger as a speaker.
Click here to register.