GenAI.mil Makes Debut as DOW Pushes Commercial AI at Scale

The War Department launched GenAI.mil, its “bespoke AI platform,” last week in an effort to bring frontier generative AI models to nearly 3 million defense employees, create a better environment for warfighters and strengthen the White House’s AI Action Plan, according to the department.

“We are pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force. The department is tapping into America’s commercial genius, and we’re embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm,” War Secretary Pete Hegseth remarked. “AI tools present boundless opportunities to increase efficiency, and we are thrilled to witness AI’s future positive impact across the War Department.”

The first capability to launch is Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government, a AI-driven environment that officials say will augment how the U.S. military operates, analyzes intelligence and conducts logistics. The initiative was announced jointly by the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) and Google Cloud as the department seek to integrate commercial-grade technology more quickly at the Pentagon.

A New Frontier

The launch comes amid a broader “reform push” led by the new administration, which has prioritized technological dominance and a departure from the slow-moving acquisition processes of the past. Officials described the platform as an “indispensable strategic imperative.”

“There is no prize for second place in the global race for AI dominance,” said Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, in a Pentagon statement. “We are moving rapidly to deploy powerful AI capabilities like Gemini for Government directly to our workforce. AI is America’s next Manifest Destiny, and we’re ensuring that we dominate this new frontier.”

Michael, who also serves as the DOW’s CTO, said that the rollout is the culmination of a frantic sprint to modernize the defense ecosystem. Speaking to the Defense Writers Group earlier this month, days before the GenAI.mil launch, Michael described the current atmosphere in the Pentagon as a “special moment in time” driven by leadership willing to break the mold.

“The Pentagon… needs a lot of change,” Michael told reporters. “The nature of warfare is changing … and that requires sort of a different mindset.”

Former AFRL scientist and founder of NIPRGPT Collen Roller told GovCIO Media & Research that move is a step forward toward innovation and acquisition goals at DOW.

“GenAI.mil is the next step towards an enterprise AI platform for the Department of War enabling frontier AI capabilities for all service members,” Roller said in an email. “I hope this next step will improve adoption and lower the barrier of entry to incredibly powerful commercial AI models and tools.”

‘Unleashing’ the Platform

The GenAI.mil platform is designed to be the digital backbone for this new mindset, according to DOW. The platform will host Google’s Gemini for Government at Impact Level 5 (IL5), a security standard that allows the system to handle sensitive, unclassified data — including Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) — without risking national security.

“This is a pivotal moment for government modernization,” said Karen Dahut, CEO of Google Public Sector, in an announcement last week. “Our deep commitment to security, sovereign data protection, and the unique power of AI gives the DOW the ability to equip all of their personnel with modern tools to solve operational and productivity challenges with unprecedented speed.”

The Pentagon’s goal is to move beyond small-scale pilots and place these tools into the hands of warfighters and analysts immediately, Michael told reporters.

“My idea is in the next weeks, timeframe, days and weeks, [we are] going to start pushing deployment of these capabilities directly to the … 3 million users at the Pentagon, at different classification levels,” Michael explained.

“It’s like when we first had touchscreen phones. People were like, ‘there’s no keyboard. What do I do now?'” Michael added. “But I think when you … think about new technologies and how people start to adapt, adopt them, they need to see them first. They need to use them. … I’m going to put the capability in front of you so you can start learning using it.”

A Shift in Warfare and Strategy

The push for GenAI.mil is not merely about administrative efficiency; it is a response to a rapidly deteriorating threat environment. Michael was blunt about the challenges posed by “near peer” adversaries, particularly China, which he noted has undergone “the most significant military buildup in world history in the last 10 to 15 years.”

The conflict in Ukraine has further accelerated the need for change, revealing a “robot on robot front line” where “low cost weapons” are replacing the “exquisite” and expensive systems that defined the last two decades of American defense spending.

“We have to start shifting the needle from all exquisite systems that are built in expensive ways to a more modern architecture,” Michael told the Defense Writers Group. This shift requires a closer integration of commercial technology, a mission that Michael has spearheaded by consolidating the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the CDAO under his purview in Research and Engineering.

By bringing these organizations together, DOW hopes to bridge the “valley of death” that often prevents commercial tech from reaching the battlefield, Michael told reporters.

The ‘AI-First’ Workforce

The “unleashing” of AI across the department is intended to cultivate an AI-first workforce, Michaels said. The platform will support a wide range of functions, from “enterprise or corporate” tasks like increasing efficiency, to “intelligence use cases” where AI can analyze vast amounts of satellite data, to “warfighting” applications such as logistics planning and modeling.

“We have a lot of intelligence that we get from satellites and so on, we don’t analyze all of it,” Michael noted. “A computer probably could do that.”

Integrating GenAI.mil is part of the larger attempt to modernize the department in the face of increased threats.

“Every day, I kind of wake up with that sense of urgency and anxiety about getting there as fast as I can,” Michael concluded. “The department hasn’t caught up … and we’re really at a turning point.”