How can soldiers leverage AI in the cyber realm?

Welcome back. Nowadays, cyber, AI, and autonomy are almost guaranteed to have a place in any military initiative

With that development comes kinks that need working out and bridges that need crossing

At this year's AUSA, we sat down with two experts to get their takes on these problems. Have a look

I want to ask sort of a broad question here, but you know, the Army often talks about speed of relevance

So from your vantage points, cyber network modernization, what are some of the biggest bottlenecks that still slow down how quickly the Army fields new technology

Is it technical, cultural, bureaucratic, a nice, lovely mix of all those things

Let's just talk at sort of the high level on that, if you can

I think it's all of the above. I think we're in a time right now where it's a cultural shift that we're kind of walking into

There's some policies that probably need to be identified in order to be changed

in order for us to use things like AI, machine learning, large language models, those things in our space

because those are all new, coming on board. So some policies we'll have to adjust on the way we use it, especially at the edge

And now we can talk a little deeper about how we want to use AI at the edge a little bit later

But, yeah, I think across the board it's a cultural shift, and we're getting there one day at a time

Yeah, I think General Ray is right. This is a unique time for the Army. I don't know how many people had the opportunity to listen to Secretary Driscoll this morning

But, you know, the Army is really preparing for that future fight, making sure we stay ahead of these threats through what we call continuous transformation

And that's not just a buzzword or a simple reorganization. It is a holistic view by the secretary and the chief

to make sure the army is prepared for that future fight. And obviously technology, cyber, AI, drones

are all central to that. And it really making sure we stay ahead of adversaries Absolutely Can you give me an example where a program sort of broke through the friction And you know what lessons you learned from that in recent experience

Yeah, when we start off, I can talk about next generation command and control

I know everybody talks about that. So, you know, we had tons and tons of disparate, you know, C2 systems that were out there, 13 systems to be exact

You know, AFAT has a couple of different ones. So what we decided to do is look at an ecosystem that could potentially replace that

And next generation command and control is something that we looked at. Now, that was built off the predication of everything we did within C2FIX

Organizations were working from 82nd, 101st, and 25th Infantry Division did the C2FIX portion

which really leveraged all that we learned there into what we're doing with next gen C2 with the 4th ID

which is our first prototype organization. So again, NextGen C2, a full stack

What we're doing on the acceleration portion of it is we're looking at the infrastructure

and the transport portion of it and how we can accelerate that across all 19 divisions

in a 30-month sprint. And I believe if we can put that transport

and infrastructure in place, which is the highway that we need in order for everything from the data

and application layer to lay on top of that, we're going to be in a really, really good place

Yeah, I think General Ray is right. I mean, maybe to kind of touch on something that's near and dear to my heart is AI

but specific for our AI relates to cybersecurity. And I know this could be an entire panel in itself

but I think what we're seeing in AI at the business use case at enterprise level is extraordinary

Our CIO with the G6 are doing great work. I'm really passionate about how do we move AI to operational use cases, specifically cyber

So for instance, how can AI be leveraged for cyber defense? And equally as important, how can we leverage it for cyber offense

And really seeing both sides of that. And in fairness Army Cyber Command I would say is really the leader when it comes to AI and cyber There still significant room we can continue to improve upon their efforts and stay ahead But I would say looking out at the services it extraordinary to see what our cyber already done leveraging AI

Let's pull the thread a little on the NextGenC2 effort that you have going right now

Obviously, the fourth ID has been very busy working on this. They have kind of different sprints iterations every, I think, once a month that builds on developing this ecosystem and this tech stack, if you will

25th ID is going to be doing the same, I think a little bit, with two different prototypes, my understanding

We're working with a lot of different companies. Two separate prototypes between 25th and 45th ID

Yeah, so this, I mean, this is a super ambitious effort when you talk about a 30-month sprint to get this out to, you know, 19 divisions

talk about what you're learning so far from the fourth ID, for instance

And are they giving you confidence that you're going to be able to, you know

hit those goals when it comes to being able to field this to the broader force

Yeah, I think they are. You know, again, this is a new, we're embarking on something new

And in the process of that, there are, we're keeping cybersecurity on the forefront of everything

Just like Mr. Puget said, when it comes to cybersecurity, we're going to bake it in early in the process

is what we did with what's happening with 4th ID and their first application that they utilized

We saw that there was some risks. We mitigated those risks. We moved forward from there, and we were able to actually get ahead of it

and still use the application as it was designed. And from there, we believe now we can move on to the next set of applications

that we would like to bring in, you know, logistics. We're looking at Intel apps that we're bringing onto the platform

And then we're going to assess those, and we going to move forward from there And I believe we can then move on to other organizations at the end of Ivy the sprints that we doing with Ivy Ivy Sting Ivy Sting

Yes. Thank you. Yes, too. Yeah. All right. Well, in terms of the cybersecurity risk you were talking about

there was a memo that came out recently. So I'm hoping that you can address that a little bit further

in terms of how you address cybersecurity deficiencies and risk. This is obviously a program that's going very quickly

and you're still at a pretty early phase here, if you will

but it's moving quick. So how will you continue to address those cybersecurity risks

and what are you currently concerned about as you move forward? You may have resolved some of the present risks

But, you know, how do you kind of continue to address and keep learning from that? Sure

I mean, what we did was we burnt down everything that we built in the beginning and we built

a new process and a new environment in order to create better security measures across

the board. That's what we actually did. And that's what we'll continue to do. We have a team that stood up to overwatch all this now

Now, the Army Data Operations Center is going to be kind of a data team that's going to

overlook that for the entire army across the board. So we're putting measures in place to

mitigate all those potential problems that may come about going forward. Yeah, and General Ray

actually said something in his first answer I just want to kind of flesh out too. It's really making

sure as we're doing a new capability, making sure security is designed really by default and by

design. So is security started at the very beginning and how is it being infused throughout

And it should iterate. I actually think it's a good day if we detect the vulnerability and

We Remedy, that's great. It's important to do it early on and now continue to fine tune the product

which is what we've seen really throughout a lot of your efforts. Yeah, I mean, wouldn't you like to find it out earlier rather than us outfitting 19 divisions

100%. 100%. Exactly. So we're there. We're doing a good job at it