Keith Brawner, Ph.D.
The Institute for Creative Technologies is helping the Army make the most of AI in future warfare.
Just as steam engines and electricity once transformed industry, artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing warfare—reshaping training, decision-making and cyber operations. The challenge, though, isn’t just in developing and deploying AI, it’s also in preparing our personnel to effectively work alongside it.
The conflict of the future will continue to be fought with weapons, but it will also require data, algorithms and intelligent automation, as well as the people who use them. The Army must prepare for a battlespace where AI-driven cyberattacks, battlefield decision-making and AI-based wargaming tactics are the norm—and they must prepare Soldiers and support staff for its use through immersive, personalized and, yes, AI-enabled training programs and tools.
Founded in 1999, and sponsored by the U.S. Army, the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), at the University of Southern California (USC), is a Department of Defense University Affiliated Research Center that is researching new simulations and learning technologies across all branches of service, including AI in all its forms. As the Army program manager for ICT, I have urged our labs to focus on AI almost exclusively over the past year—because it’s what the military urgently needs to prepare for the future of warfare. They needed no encouragement, as AI and machine learning are now functionally part of every operational software system and every development environment within the Army. In fact, it was recently reported that roughly 30% of Microsoft’s code is AI written and their largest products are cloud services for AI items. Microsoft expects 95% of all code to be AI generated by 2030.
THE NEED FOR AI EDUCATION IN THE MILITARY
AI literacy is not optional—it’s a mission-critical necessity. We’re not just competing for technological superiority; we’re ensuring our warfighters can wield these tools effectively. Many Soldiers and officers have only a surface-level understanding of AI, yet they will soon depend on it for everything from logistics to battlefield decision-making. Incorporating AI into military education curricula will ensure that future personnel possess the knowledge to effectively utilize their own tools and mitigate AI-enabled threats in both cyber and physical domains.
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