AI Emerges as Engine of Data-Driven Warfare, Officials Say

The future of warfare may hinge less on hardware alone and more on how quickly services can learn from data, and artificial intelligence is emerging as the engine behind that shift, defense officials explained at  AFCEA/USNI WEST in San Diego Wednesday.

“AI is impacting … the speed of our ability to learn from data,” Stuart Wagner, the Department of the Navy’s chief digital and AI officer said during a panel on applying AI for combat advantage. “It’s going to change the character of war. It’s definitely going to change administrative tasks, but I think it’s going to be employed in the same way during war, and it’s going to expedite the ability to deliver data-driven effects with warfighting capability.”

Learning from Industry Partners

Wagner noted that major technology companies already deliver services based on automatically collected usage data. That same model is increasingly applied to hardware systems, such as Tesla’s Autopilot and SpaceX’s Starlink network.

AI enables rapid updates and recalibration based on real-time data. Wagner cited five ways this can be applied to warfare: updating the system itself, changing how the system is used, transforming operational planning, adapting training and exercises and creating emergent capabilities.

“If you look at like how big tech companies have come to rapidly iterate their delivery of a product or service, in all cases, is undergirded with automatically collected data,” he said.

As an example of emergent capability, Wagner pointed to Claude Cowork, an AI system developed after usage data from Claude Code revealed that nontechnical users were leveraging the coding platform. The company built and released Cowork in 10 days using insights gathered from that data.

Wagner said this development cycle will only accelerate, changing the character of war by dramatically speeding the delivery of new capabilities and operational effects.

“The speed it’s taking place is faster than any of us could have imagined,” he said.

The Marine Corps is Adopting AI

In recent years, the Navy and Marine Corps have made considerable advances in AI and machine learning. Maj. Christopher Clark, Marine Corps AI lead, said that the service has focused on mission alignment and solving concrete operational problems with AI.

“We’re not trying to develop a solution and then find the problem. We’re finding what the problem is and then applying a solution to it,” Clark said.

The Marine Corps has moved aggressively to move beyond theoretical planning, he added. Following the release of an AI strategy in 2024, the service launched an extensive implementation plan, he said, to turn the strategy into execution.

Clark said the plan includes “digital transformation teams” to the Fleet Marine Force, including units at II MEF, MARFORPAC and MARFORCYBER. These teams are designed to embed talent directly within the mission space. Clark emphasized that the goal is to empower Marines to solve immediate problems with adaptable tools.

“We need to focus on the area that’s potentially disposable code and disposable analytics that are going to be adaptable on the battlefield,” Clark said. “[We want to] have those Marines embedded within the mission space to be able to understand those mission problems, make code in an agile manner, use it and then move on to the next objective.”

Placing Humans ‘On the Loop’

While the precise impact of AI on warfighting is impossible to predict, Wagner said its effect on human tasks is easier to anticipate. Many labor-intensive functions can be streamlined, or in some cases eliminated, through automation.

Humans will increasingly be “on the loop” rather than “in the loop,” he said.

AI can help with a variety of tasks, such as classifying images, explained Clark. Analysts currently review video footage around the clock, an exhausting process in which important details can be missed. Machine learning tools can continuously scan footage and alert analysts only when relevant activity is detected.

Predictive maintenance and logistics also present significant opportunities for AI. A major issue for the service is getting the right part to the right place. Clark noted that companies such as Amazon use machine learning to power same-day delivery by predicting demand and positioning inventory accordingly.

“That’s what we need to do,” Clark said.

He added that most Marines do not need to understand the technical mechanics of AI. Instead, they need to understand how AI-enabled systems support the missions they execute. Implementing AI across the Marines means getting it to everyone who wants to work with it.

“We need to have the workforce, not just the officers that get a master’s degree at NPS. Though that’s great, we need that too, but we also need to have the enlisted Marines and the rest of the workforce to be able to do the work that needs to get done,” Clark said.