Christian Ullrich
May 2025
Generative artificial intelligence must be understood as a strategic weapon rather than a supporting tool in modern military operations. This transformative capability fundamentally redefines how nations plan, operate, and execute decisions across every echelon of defense. The speed, scalability, and intelligence offered by generative AI provide decisive advantages in logistics, procurement, staff functions, and battlefield awareness, all of which determine readiness long before any direct conflict occurs. The United States currently leads in generative AI development, but China is quickly narrowing the gap and sharing its tools with adversaries of the West, accelerating a new form of digital arms race. Legacy systems and bureaucratic inertia threaten to leave Western militaries structurally disadvantaged unless they rapidly adopt and deploy generative AI across all functions. Human and AI teaming, rather than machine replacement, offers superior outcomes by merging human judgment with machine speed and reasoning. To remain competitive, militaries must act with urgency by deploying accessible generative AI tools at scale, cultivating a culture of fast iteration and experimentation, and embedding generative AI into every aspect of command, planning, and execution. Hesitation is no longer a strategic option. In the era of algorithmic warfare, the side that learns and adapts fastest will dominate not only future battlefields but every operational layer that leads up to them.
Generative artificial intelligence is not just another support function to be added to the digital stack. It is a strategic asset that will shape how nations compete, operate, and ultimately prevail in future conflicts. While frontline applications may receive the most attention, the true revolution is taking place behind the scenes - in staff work, in logistics, and in decision-making processes. These are the domains where speed, insight, and precision define operational superiority long before the first shot is fired.
The United States currently leads the global development of generative AI, with China trailing by roughly a year. All other nations remain far behind. However, China does not intend to keep this edge to itself. It shares its capabilities widely, including with adversaries of the West. As a result, the threat landscape is expanding rapidly. Generative AI is already in use by rival nations and hostile non-state actors. They are not waiting. Neither can we.
Treating GenAI as a weapon changes everything. This technology accelerates information processing, reduces the time required to make complex decisions, and introduces a new class of capabilities that were previously unattainable. In administrative environments, it shortens document preparation from hours to minutes, synthesizes massive volumes of data, and supports strategic planning with near-real-time feedback. These may seem like back-office improvements, but they are in fact force multipliers. They unlock speed, clarity, and scalability that no traditional toolset can deliver.
Ignoring the strategic nature of GenAI invites danger. We face a future in which enemies can outpace us not through superior firepower, but through superior workflow. Bureaucracy becomes a battlefield. The military force that processes information faster, develops plans quicker, and adapts organizationally will dominate. Delays in integrating GenAI into everyday military functions, particularly in the staff and command environment, create structural disadvantages that grow over time.
Generative AI does more than assist. It generates options, distills complexity, and presents decision-makers with better choices at higher speed. Even current commercial tools like ChatGPT already enhance the quality and efficiency of planning, reporting, and analysis tasks across all echelons of command. When widely deployed, GenAI becomes a cognitive partner. It is less like a piece of software and more like adding thousands of hyper-intelligent aides to the organization. These tools do not sleep, hesitate, or stall. They operate continuously and scale effortlessly.
The adoption of GenAI must be viewed not as an experiment but as a matter of urgency. As with traditional weapons, the nation that fields it first and integrates it most effectively will gain a decisive edge. Generative AI will form the foundation of nearly all future systems. From logistics software to battlefield robotics, GenAI will drive development and execution. Waiting for perfection or clarity before integrating these tools only widens the gap between us and those who act now.
Some argue that AI is not yet ready for core military tasks. But that is no longer the case for administrative and staff functions. GenAI is already capable of handling them better, faster, and more reliably than traditional human-led workflows. The real challenge is not technological - it is cultural. Military institutions must recognize that using GenAI is not optional. It is the minimum standard for operational relevance in the years ahead.
To shift from hesitation to momentum, we must first make GenAI tools accessible to a broad range of personnel. This does not require building mission-specific platforms from scratch. It means introducing general-purpose systems, encouraging everyday use, and learning from that usage. Cultural change begins when personnel - from junior staff officers to senior commanders - integrate GenAI into routine tasks. This change will cascade through the defense industrial base, influencing procurement, development, and integration strategies across the board.
The concept of deterrence also evolves in this new landscape. Just as with conventional military capabilities, adversaries must know that we possess and fully exploit GenAI. Strategic signaling now includes digital competence. It is not enough to have access to GenAI - we must demonstrate that we are using it to maximum effect. Nations that fail to do so will appear not only technologically weak but strategically inert.
This is not a future scenario. It is a current imperative. The sooner we understand GenAI as a weapon, the sooner we can build the doctrine, culture, and workflows to deploy it at speed and scale. Victory will not go to the side with the best idea or the most meetings. It will go to the side that learns fastest, acts boldly, and integrates relentlessly.
Speed has always been a decisive factor in warfare. What is changing now is the definition of where that speed matters most. In an era of generative artificial intelligence, it is no longer enough to outmaneuver the enemy on the battlefield alone. The true advantage lies in accelerating every layer of military operations, especially the administrative and bureaucratic foundations that underpin readiness and execution. Generative AI is the key to this acceleration.
The most overlooked battleground is the office. Command structures, logistics chains, procurement pipelines, and staff functions often determine whether a force is prepared, equipped, and able to act. Generative AI dramatically shortens the time required to perform these essential but traditionally slow tasks. Document creation, situational analysis, planning cycles, and procurement paperwork can all be executed in a fraction of the time. Current tools like ChatGPT already enable time savings of up to 80 percent in these domains. This is not speculative. These capabilities are already available and in use in the civilian sector. The military must catch up.
The power of speed is not limited to tactical or operational levels. Strategic speed - the ability to adapt the organization, respond to emerging threats, and execute decisions quickly - is now the decisive variable. GenAI compresses timelines at all levels. A military that can cut its procurement planning by months or streamline bureaucratic decision-making by orders of magnitude gains a substantial edge. These improvements may seem dull compared to kinetic capabilities, but they directly determine whether those capabilities can be fielded effectively and in time.
Prioritizing speed over perfection is essential. Too often, militaries aim for complete, flawless solutions that require extended timelines and exhaustive approval processes. In the GenAI era, this mindset becomes a liability. Rapid, iterative progress beats delayed excellence. An 80-percent solution delivered in 20 percent of the time enables initiative, responsiveness, and adaptability. Generative AI supports this shift by producing workable outputs quickly. In staff work, AI-generated drafts eliminate the paralysis of perfectionism and encourage faster cycles of feedback and execution.
This cultural change must begin now. Staff officers and administrators must shift from cautious optimization to fast iteration. A culture that embraces speed will naturally outperform one that demands excessive refinement. The military rewards operational decisiveness on the battlefield but often punishes administrative initiative with layers of review and hesitation. GenAI creates an opportunity to reverse this imbalance. By reducing the time and effort required to prepare documents, make decisions, and plan missions, it empowers personnel to act faster without compromising on substance.
Command structures will need to evolve as GenAI becomes embedded in daily workflows. As more decisions can be informed or supported by AI tools, authority can shift closer to the edge. This redistribution of decision-making power has the potential to unlock new levels of speed in planning and execution. But this cannot happen in theory alone. Before command structures can be redesigned, GenAI must be deployed, adopted, and used widely. Only then will its full impact become visible and measurable.
The cost of hesitation will be severe. Our adversaries, particularly China and Russia, are integrating GenAI into their military and administrative systems with increasing speed. A delay in adoption does not just affect isolated functions. It leads to a cascading strategic disadvantage. Nations that fail to integrate GenAI into their defense bureaucracies will find themselves outpaced in every category, from logistics to planning to procurement.
Training must also change. Once GenAI is broadly available across the force, training programs must evolve to emphasize speed, experimentation, and continuous improvement. Personnel should be empowered to use AI tools in everyday tasks, learn from their results, and apply those insights without waiting for perfect instruction. This cultural shift will define the next generation of readiness - not just how well a force can fight, but how quickly it can think, plan, and adapt.
Speed wins wars not only by enabling action, but by accelerating every process that precedes it. Generative AI collapses timelines, reduces friction, and unlocks the full tempo of a modern fighting force. The only question is whether we will act fast enough to seize that advantage.
Generative AI introduces not only more intelligence, but fundamentally better intelligence at far greater speed. It never rests, never hesitates, and never needs to be reminded. While traditional decision-making structures depend on human cognition, memory, and availability, machine-scale intelligence functions continuously, filters enormous volumes of data, and produces clear, actionable insights without pause. This capability is no longer theoretical. It is real, and it is already changing the nature of strategic and operational planning.
At the core of this transformation lies the ability to process and analyze unstructured data with unprecedented speed. A generative AI system like ChatGPT can accept vast, disorganized inputs and quickly produce structured assessments, draft plans, or complete reports. Users do not need to understand complex strategies or frameworks beforehand. The system identifies gaps, proposes options, and refines outputs based on simple natural language prompts. In practice, this means that military personnel can delegate much of their cognitive workload to AI, enabling faster, more informed decision-making at every level.
Machine-scale intelligence does more than speed up analysis. It transforms how information is filtered, organized, and turned into decisions. Modern large language models have been trained on vast repositories of knowledge and can apply reasoning capabilities without needing explicit instructions. Users describe their intent in natural language, and GenAI systems interpret and apply relevant functions automatically. This ability to translate vague or complex instructions into precise outputs represents a leap in efficiency. In a bureaucracy, it means fewer meetings, faster reports, and better prioritization of attention.
Trust in machine-generated insights will not come from blind faith, but from experience and validation. AI is not fully transparent in how it operates, which can make its recommendations difficult to interpret at first. However, users can test the reliability of GenAI tools across varied scenarios, measure their consistency, and develop an understanding of where and how to rely on them. Over time, confidence in GenAI grows not because it is perfect, but because it proves to be a better decision partner than average human judgment in many contexts.
This shift has serious implications. Average decision-making is no longer enough. If AI consistently outperforms human analysis in speed, accuracy, and breadth, it will become a requirement for competitiveness. Most decisions in bureaucracies are made by individuals without deep domain expertise. GenAI compensates for this limitation by offering instant access to knowledge, structured reasoning, and clear synthesis. In this environment, relying solely on human insight becomes a vulnerability rather than a strength.
Military forces that fail to adopt machine-scale intelligence risk falling behind at every level. Many software systems and processes will soon embed GenAI at their core, not only to improve performance but also to reduce costs. Legacy systems that ignore this trend will become slower, more expensive, and harder to adapt. While not every application of GenAI will prove beneficial, the failure to evaluate and integrate this capability systematically will result in missed opportunities and reduced operational efficiency.
When commanders begin to trust machine-generated intelligence, new tactics emerge. Decisions can move closer to the front. Authority can be delegated with greater confidence, because those in the field have better tools to understand their context and act quickly. Even if traditional hierarchies remain in place, GenAI drastically accelerates the time between sensing a situation and responding to it. Strategic decisions become more dynamic. Operational planning becomes more flexible. Staff work becomes less of a bottleneck.
AI also enhances battlefield awareness beyond human limits. It can rapidly combine intelligence feeds, operational updates, and environmental data into a coherent picture. Decision-support processes powered by GenAI can be prototyped and deployed within days. These systems improve over time, learning from real-world feedback. Even today, a team could construct a working AI-based situational analysis tool in a matter of hours using existing capabilities. These solutions reduce friction, support leaders, and sharpen the entire decision chain.
Over the next five years, GenAI will become embedded in nearly every domain of the civilian economy. Its influence will shape corporate planning, logistics, and customer service. The military will follow this trend, but likely with a delay. That delay is acceptable only if leaders begin now to understand, adopt, and scale these technologies. The race to build AI-augmented forces is already underway. Those who hesitate will not only miss the advantages of machine-scale intelligence - they will lose missions before they begin.
Victory in future conflicts will depend on the ability to combine human intent with machine precision. GenAI does not eliminate the role of people. It empowers them to operate at a level of speed and clarity that was previously unreachable. Machine-scale intelligence does not merely support the mission. In many cases, it makes the mission possible.
Generative AI is no longer an emerging technology. It is operational, deployed, and influencing the global balance of power in real time. While some nations continue to treat AI adoption as a matter of future planning, others have already begun integrating GenAI into their systems at scale. The strategic competition is underway, and those still debating its importance risk falling permanently behind.
Adversaries are not theorizing about GenAI - they are using it. This new phase of digital warfare has started quietly but decisively. Nation-states are leveraging AI to optimize logistics, accelerate decision-making, and enhance information operations. The battlefield has changed, yet many defense institutions are stuck in a pre-AI mindset. While some governments are drafting policy papers, others are exporting GenAI to their allies and clients, extending their influence and creating new digital alliances.
China, in particular, represents a pivotal actor. It is second only to the United States in GenAI development and is rapidly narrowing the gap. More importantly, it distributes its AI technology to states and organizations that directly oppose Western interests. Russia has already benefited from this alignment, as have others. This redistribution of capability is not merely technological - it is strategic. It reshapes alliances, undermines deterrence, and forces a redefinition of power in global affairs.
Europe, by contrast, remains cautious and fragmented. Distrust of both American technology and Chinese intentions has led to indecision, slowing the development and deployment of domestic AI solutions. Despite ambitions for independence, European defense structures have failed to close the technological gap. The cultural resistance to rapid change, combined with bureaucratic inertia, has left many institutions unable to respond to the speed and adaptability of rivals. The result is a growing strategic disadvantage.
The consequences of this delay are already visible. AI systems in China and other adversarial states are advancing at a pace unmatched in Europe. Their integration into public administration, industry, and military planning is accelerating. While the West debates, these nations act. They launch new language models, integrate GenAI into weapons systems, and adapt their bureaucracies to operate at digital speed. Each month of hesitation widens the performance gap.
Generative AI reshapes every aspect of defense. In procurement, it reduces the time to draft, review, and approve documents. In intelligence, it synthesizes vast data streams into clear assessments. In planning, it proposes viable strategies in seconds. The military force that masters these capabilities first gains an edge not through firepower, but through speed, clarity, and flexibility. The force that delays adoption becomes predictable, slower, and easier to outmaneuver.
This is not speculation. The evidence is everywhere. Tools like ChatGPT have already demonstrated their utility in accelerating analysis and producing complex outputs with minimal input. Chinese alternatives such as DeepSeek and Qwen are also evolving rapidly, with growing integration into both civilian and military systems. These models are not confined to laboratories. They are being fielded, refined, and scaled. The same cannot be said for many Western equivalents.
The threat of strategic surprise grows larger with every delay. The assumption that there is still time to catch up is dangerous. Nations will not necessarily fall through conflict. They may simply be outpaced in planning, response, and coordination - long before a conventional confrontation begins. The first shot may never be heard if the war is won in meetings, codebases, and procurement chains.
To remain competitive, military doctrine must reflect the fact that AI is no longer optional. It must be integrated into how forces learn, decide, and act. That shift requires more than new systems. It demands cultural transformation. Institutions must relearn how to simplify, adapt, and move quickly. They must abandon endless debates and adopt a culture of self-learning, experimentation, and bold decision-making. Complex systems must give way to agile ones. Hierarchies must support velocity, not obstruction.
This is the strategic reality: the AI race has started. It is no longer about who has the best weapons, but who has the fastest and most adaptable organizations. The war of efficiency, information, and execution is being fought right now in procurement offices, command centers, and staff functions. Delaying action today will not only forfeit competitive advantage - it will cement structural inferiority.
Forces must act as if the war has already begun. Because in many ways, it already has.
The next generation of military effectiveness will not come from machines replacing humans, but from machines working alongside them. Generative AI empowers people rather than displaces them. It enhances human capability by accelerating cognitive tasks, improving decision-making, and freeing personnel to focus on what matters most. This partnership is not theoretical. It is already possible, and its potential is too great to ignore.
Every military professional, from junior staff to senior leadership, can benefit from generative AI. Tools like ChatGPT can assist with research, writing, planning, and analysis. These tasks account for a significant portion of the daily workload across the armed forces. Currently, only a small fraction of personnel have access to these tools, despite their ability to improve productivity by fifty to ninety percent. Expanding access is not only a matter of efficiency - it is a matter of strategic advantage.
Human-AI teaming produces superior outcomes because it combines the best of both worlds. Humans bring judgment, creativity, and experience. Machines bring speed, consistency, and memory. Together, they deliver faster solutions and clearer insights. This synergy is not a luxury; it is quickly becoming a requirement. Forces that fail to adopt AI as a standard cognitive partner will find themselves slower, less precise, and ultimately less capable than those who do.
GenAI does more than accelerate individual output. It transforms how entire organizations operate. A single assistant can now help hundreds of users complete reports, synthesize data, or brainstorm options. The result is not automation in the traditional sense, but augmentation. Human intent guides action. AI refines and executes that intent at scale. This shift allows personnel to concentrate on judgment, oversight, and critical decisions rather than routine tasks.
To build effective human-machine teams, soldiers and civilian personnel must learn to use AI instinctively. Training begins with access. The first step is not to develop new educational programs, but to ensure widespread availability of tools. People learn best by using technology in real tasks. Adoption happens not through theoretical instruction, but through practical, habitual use. Once GenAI becomes part of the daily workflow, deeper understanding and trust will follow.
Learning to work with AI also requires new skills. Personnel must understand how to communicate with GenAI systems, often through well-crafted prompts. This skill is not technical in the traditional sense, but it is foundational to modern digital literacy. As users gain experience, they learn how AI responds, how to verify outputs, and how to guide results more effectively. This hands-on learning builds confidence and enables more sophisticated use over time.
Leadership plays a crucial role in shaping this transformation. Military leaders must recognize that generative AI is not just a support tool. It is a force multiplier. They must evaluate results based on quality and impact, not on whether a human or a machine produced them. Leaders must also foster a culture that embraces speed and adaptability. In many cases, an AI-supported 80-percent solution delivered quickly is more valuable than a perfect result that arrives too late.
Empowering forces with GenAI also requires a mindset shift in how tasks are approached. AI can prepare briefings, summarize large documents, generate first drafts of plans, and support creative thinking. These are not future capabilities. They are available today. When soldiers and civilians work side-by-side with AI, they gain more time to reflect, decide, and lead. They can focus their attention on high-impact actions while leaving the rest to the machine.
The decisive advantage in future conflict will belong to those who adopt AI across the force, not just in elite units or specialized departments. Widespread adoption ensures that the entire organization benefits from faster planning, smarter workflows, and more resilient operations. Even without deployment to the frontlines, GenAI can strengthen a military institution by improving its internal speed, clarity, and cohesion.
Success does not require building highly customized systems. It requires giving people access to general-purpose tools, enabling use at scale, and supporting a culture of experimentation and feedback. GenAI should not be reserved for a select few or buried within isolated innovation units. It must become a routine part of how the organization thinks, decides, and acts.
Human-AI teaming is the new standard for operational readiness. The sooner it becomes the norm, the stronger and more agile the force will become.
Modern warfare demands speed, adaptability, and continuous learning. Legacy systems were not built for these conditions. They were designed for stability, predictability, and control. In an age defined by generative AI, these characteristics have become liabilities. Legacy platforms slow down decision-making, drain resources, and obstruct innovation. They cannot keep up with the requirements of a rapidly evolving information environment.
Generative AI accelerates the development, deployment, and refinement of digital systems. It makes software cheaper to build, easier to maintain, and faster to adapt. Although foundational models like large language models are expensive to create, the applications built on top of them are far more cost-effective and versatile than previous generations of tools. Intelligence, rather than rule-based configuration, now drives system behavior. This shift transforms how militaries and institutions must think about technology adoption.
Legacy systems struggle to adapt because they are rigid by design. Their interfaces, workflows, and technical underpinnings often require months or years to update. In a world where adversaries can shift tactics in hours and deploy AI-powered capabilities in weeks, systems that need quarterly reviews or year-long upgrade cycles are not just outdated. They are dangerous. They prevent timely response and reduce the flexibility of military operations at all levels, including the administrative core.
The issue is not just technological. It is cultural. Many organizations continue to maintain a mindset that favors complex processes, overengineered integration, and bureaucratic control. This mindset delays action and rewards inaction. Meanwhile, GenAI-native startups are building tools with fewer people, more speed, and greater agility. They are defining the future of productivity, and they will become dominant players in both commercial and defense ecosystems if legacy actors cannot adjust.
The consequences of clinging to outdated platforms are already visible. The battle for organizational agility has largely been lost. Competitors like China have demonstrated faster adaptation and leaner decision-making across defense, government, and industry. While these nations face their own limitations, their willingness to move quickly gives them a structural advantage that is difficult to reverse. Western forces, burdened by procedural inertia, risk becoming permanently reactive.
It is not enough to retrofit old systems with AI features. True transformation requires AI-first design. New tools must be built from the ground up with generative AI at their core. This approach increases flexibility, reduces costs, and accelerates deployment timelines. It mirrors trends seen in the private sector, where smaller teams now build and scale applications that once required entire departments. Waiting for perfect system integration only delays adoption. It is better to start small, deploy widely, and iterate continuously.
The most serious risk of legacy systems is their impact on decision-making. AI can deliver insights in seconds. Legacy infrastructure often takes days to compile reports or coordinate approvals. This time lag costs initiative, efficiency, and ultimately effectiveness. The contrast between machine-driven intelligence and rule-bound workflows will grow more stark each year. Organizations that do not evolve will fall behind not only technologically, but operationally and strategically.
Military forces must learn to operate without the weight of outdated thinking. Leaders must stop treating bureaucracy as a feature of stability and begin treating it as a threat to readiness. The future belongs to institutions that simplify, accelerate, and experiment. That does not mean abandoning structure. It means designing structure that supports speed and learning rather than blocking it.
There is no time left to wait for the perfect plan. Forces must begin building GenAI-native systems now. They must test new tools in isolated pilots, learn from implementation, and scale what works. Market-ready solutions should be deployed broadly, not delayed by the search for full system compatibility. AI enables rapid adaptation, but only for those willing to embrace new methods of thinking and execution.
Every year of delay increases the gap between those who act and those who wait. That gap will define who remains relevant and who becomes obsolete. The longer militaries cling to legacy infrastructure, the more painful the transformation will become. Eventually, the cost will not only be financial or operational. It will be strategic.
To win the future, forces must unburden themselves from the systems of the past. The competition has already moved on.
Modern conflict does not respect boundaries. Warfare now stretches across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace without pause or predictability. In this environment, the ability to process information, plan rapidly, and act decisively is no longer confined to a single domain. Generative AI provides the one capability that can meet this challenge across every arena of military operations, including the critical administrative and bureaucratic layers that support them all.
GenAI delivers universal advantages because its foundation is language and reasoning. Tools such as ChatGPT can already enhance productivity in every function that depends on reading, writing, organizing, or synthesizing information. These are not niche use cases. They define the daily workload across all commands, staff offices, and support units. Whether drafting operational plans, compiling logistics reports, or processing procurement documentation, GenAI accelerates outcomes and raises quality. The result is a persistent advantage that strengthens the entire force.
To unlock this advantage, militaries must abandon domain-specific thinking. GenAI tools do not require specialized implementation per service branch. Their strength lies in their adaptability. A single tool, when made available across the organization, can serve intelligence officers, logistics planners, procurement analysts, and administrative clerks alike. This common foundation reduces duplication, simplifies training, and allows for shared workflows that evolve through practice rather than prescription.
Cross-domain deployment is not only efficient - it is essential. Many units and commands already consist of mixed personnel drawn from different services and specialties. Segregated AI systems would complicate rather than simplify their operations. A shared platform creates consistency, fosters collaboration, and ensures that lessons learned in one area can be applied quickly to others. Over time, specialized add-ons may evolve, but they should build on a common base, not fragment the landscape.
GenAI’s most profound contribution may be its ability to erase the artificial barriers between operational and administrative domains. For too long, tasks like planning, reporting, and documentation have been seen as peripheral. In reality, they are central to operational readiness. GenAI improves both the speed and quality of these foundational tasks. Faster staff work means faster decision-making. Better documentation supports clearer communication. The benefits scale horizontally across departments and vertically across command levels.
Continuous availability is another defining strength of GenAI. These systems do not rest or reset. They operate at all hours and respond to all users equally. When embedded across the force, they create an always-on layer of insight, planning support, and decision acceleration. Militaries that can rely on 24-hour GenAI support will move faster than those bound by human cycles alone. This speed becomes a structural advantage in both preparation and execution.
To make this reality possible, the tools must be both available and stable. Generative AI should be introduced broadly and refined through use. Stability and uptime are essential to trust. If tools are unreliable or inconsistent, adoption will stall. But with reliable performance, users will naturally explore new applications, discover efficiencies, and drive cultural change from within. GenAI is not a solution to be imposed - it is a capability to be adopted and evolved by the workforce itself.
Standardization is the key to scale. Forces should begin with general-purpose GenAI tools that offer broad functionality. These tools enable users across all domains to perform a wide range of tasks more efficiently. From there, specific use cases will emerge organically. Users will develop their own methods, create templates, and share techniques. This bottom-up innovation ensures that the deployment remains aligned with real needs rather than theoretical requirements.
GenAI will also enable missions that are currently infeasible due to time, resource, or cognitive constraints. With the right prompts, users can generate situational assessments, synthesize threat data, or draft contingency plans faster than any traditional process allows. This capacity unlocks new levels of organizational responsiveness, especially in bureaucratic environments that have long struggled with delay and inefficiency.
Ultimately, generative AI creates convergence. It draws together disparate workflows, aligns fragmented tools, and replaces disconnected solutions with a coherent digital foundation. Just as office software once standardized how organizations wrote, calculated, and presented information, GenAI will define how they analyze, decide, and act. But unlike traditional software, it is not passive. It collaborates, anticipates, and improves over time.
To remain competitive in every domain, on every mission, and in every hour, forces must embrace GenAI not as a specialist tool but as a foundational capability. The edge will go to those who embed it across their organization, make it universally accessible, and allow it to evolve through use. Anything less will leave critical opportunities unrealized.
The defining arms race of our time is no longer measured in tanks, missiles, or factories. It is measured in data, algorithms, and the ability to deploy synthetic intelligence at speed and scale. Military superiority is shifting from industrial dominance to digital dominance. Nations that lead in algorithmic capability will set the pace not just in warfare, but across diplomacy, economics, and strategic influence.
This transformation is not new. The last decades saw a transition from hardware-centric competition to software-driven systems. Today, that shift continues, evolving from software to intelligence. What once depended on physical infrastructure now rests on computational scale and agility. Generative AI marks the latest and most decisive phase of this evolution. It brings reasoning, pattern recognition, and adaptability into every system it touches.
National defense is now digital defense. In a world where cyber operations, logistics planning, and threat analysis depend on software, the side that dominates AI dominates the tempo and character of military readiness. Leadership in generative AI confers an advantage that compounds across every organizational layer. The battlefield has extended to include code, data pipelines, and model training infrastructure. Nations are already competing. Some are already winning.
Speed is the new determinant of success. Bureaucratic inertia, slow procurement cycles, and fragmented governance structures severely hamper the ability of Western militaries to act at the required pace. In the AI race, quality matters, but quantity and speed of deployment matter more. It is more valuable for every soldier to have access to a simple but reliable GenAI chatbot than for a select few to use the most advanced solution in isolation. Widespread adoption creates organizational intelligence. Delay creates vulnerability.
The power of generative AI depends on large language models (LLMs), which form the backbone of today’s AI capabilities. These models determine the quality of outputs and the reliability of applications built on top. While the United States maintains leadership in foundational model development, Europe has fallen behind. China, in contrast, not only builds competitive models but also shares them openly, enabling global uptake. Ironically, some of the most promising open-source models now originate from Chinese developers.
Success in this domain requires more than superior models. It requires deployment, usage, and continuous iteration. Governments must move quickly to adopt market-ready solutions and enable broad organizational use. Open-source models offer a practical foundation, but progress depends on building and scaling applications that solve real problems. These tools must be simple to use, adaptable to workflows, and designed to spread rapidly across forces.
Military success will depend on digital superiority long before it depends on battlefield performance. Generative AI is already proving its value in administration and planning. It accelerates paperwork, improves situational awareness, and shortens decision cycles. As integration deepens, its effects will extend to operational command, targeting systems, and autonomous platforms. Digital capability is no longer separate from combat capability. It is its enabler.
To compete in this new race, militaries must shift resources and attention away from hardware obsession. Hardware will always matter, but the infrastructure for digital decision-making must become a central focus. Building applications on GenAI does not require years of development. Many can be prototyped within days using open models. Security can be managed by operating these systems in protected environments. Development culture is changing, with new approaches like low-code tools and collaborative AI development (often called “vibe coding”) enabling more people to contribute to useful software.
Commercial sectors have already moved ahead. Civilian technology companies now innovate faster than many military programs. This imbalance is not sustainable. The military does not need to outpace the commercial world, but it must at least keep pace. Doing so requires adopting the best available tools, minimizing procurement friction, and treating GenAI as a capability to deploy, not a topic to study.
Failure to act will widen the gap. Adversaries that master GenAI will control not just how fast their forces move, but how effectively their organizations think. They will achieve information dominance long before a single shot is fired. Byte by byte, the next war is already being shaped. It will be won by those who understand that the new arsenal is software, and that algorithms, not factories, define modern power.
In the age of generative AI, excessive caution is no longer a virtue. It is a form of strategic paralysis. The pace of technological change is unforgiving, and hesitation now creates lasting disadvantages. Militaries that continue to prioritize perfection, consensus, or procedural safety over decisive implementation will find themselves trapped in a cycle of delay. Meanwhile, their adversaries will move faster, learn quicker, and adapt more effectively.
Innovation means nothing without execution. Across many institutions, extensive planning efforts have replaced action. White papers circulate. Concept documents grow longer. Committees debate implementation paths. But very few systems are deployed. The gap between awareness and adoption widens with each passing month. Even tools as accessible and broadly useful as ChatGPT are restricted or banned in some contexts rather than used for routine, non-sensitive tasks. This hesitation is not a question of capability. It is a failure of will.
Many organizations are immobilized by the fear of making mistakes. Leaders worry that experimentation may lead to error. Inaction feels safer than imperfect progress. But this mindset rewards delay and punishes initiative. It slows down every decision and stalls every experiment. The consequence is not just slow adoption. It is the erosion of competitiveness. Militaries cannot afford to let fear guide their digital strategies.
Action creates momentum. Planning prepares the ground, but only action transforms potential into capability. No plan survives contact with reality, but well-executed experiments produce knowledge and build confidence. Fast, small deployments offer early feedback and tangible results. These create learning loops that drive continuous improvement. Momentum builds through doing, not by drafting another roadmap.
Failure is not the enemy of progress. It is the path to it. Rapid experimentation inevitably produces setbacks. But small failures, corrected quickly, become the raw material of innovation. Mistakes reveal weaknesses. Corrections strengthen systems. What matters is not avoiding every error but responding to them with speed and clarity. Organizations that embrace this mindset will outperform those that remain stuck in abstract preparation.
Perfectionism is a silent killer. It shifts attention away from outcomes and toward appearances. It delays useful solutions in pursuit of flawless ones. In military organizations, this has led to bureaucracies that spend years designing gold-plated systems while ignoring tools that could be deployed today. GenAI does not need a perfect strategy to deliver value. It needs access, iteration, and trust.
Commanders must foster a culture of initiative. Leadership means enabling others to act, not centralizing every decision. When personnel at all levels are empowered to experiment, deploy tools, and take responsibility, the organization becomes agile and resilient. If decisions are pushed upward out of fear, nothing moves. When initiative flows across the force, innovation accelerates.
This change begins with widespread access to GenAI. Every member of the force should have a capable tool - whether centrally hosted or commercially available - and the freedom to use it. As individuals integrate GenAI into their daily routines, they will uncover novel use cases, refine workflows, and share successful patterns. These user-driven innovations will emerge first in administrative settings, then spread into planning, logistics, and ultimately to the edge of operations.
Adoption cannot depend solely on top-down initiatives. Boldness must replace bureaucracy. Leaders must recognize that AI deployment is not a one-time project but an ongoing mission. Someone must be willing to take the first step, make the first decision, and carry the risk of being wrong. Without this courage, nothing changes.
Every AI program should build in a bias for action. Start small. Test often. Capture lessons. Scale what works. Launch new versions. Repeat. This rhythm turns AI deployment into a living, adaptive process rather than a static procurement cycle. In doing so, it creates a culture that favors execution over hesitation, and speed over theoretical perfection.
The difference between victory and irrelevance in the AI age will not be determined by who had the best plans. It will be decided by who moved first and learned fastest. The only way forward is through bold, continuous action.
Mobilizing generative AI is no longer optional. It is the defining test of institutional readiness in the digital era. Every day of hesitation increases the risk of strategic failure. Every delay strengthens adversaries who have already begun integrating AI into their decision-making systems. The time for discussion has passed. What remains is the imperative to act.
AI integration must be treated as a wartime priority. The demands of this transformation mirror the urgency of operational mobilization. We must build teams, deploy systems, train users, and adapt continuously. Planning without implementation is surrender. Strategy without speed is defeat. There is no substitute for movement. We must begin now, not later.
Generative AI is rapidly becoming the foundation of how work is done. It is not only transforming commercial enterprise but also redefining how societies learn, decide, and coordinate. In military contexts, GenAI can already deliver massive productivity gains in administrative and bureaucratic functions. These are the areas where operational readiness is built, sustained, and projected. If GenAI becomes the standard everywhere else, it must also become the standard in defense.
To mobilize effectively, organizations must recognize that readiness begins with urgency. Bureaucratic obstacles cannot be eliminated overnight, but they can be bypassed with the very tools they obstruct. GenAI can be used to streamline the paperwork, accelerate internal processes, and simplify decision cycles that currently prevent its own adoption. AI must become both the enabler and the object of its own deployment.
Every day of delay is a day of falling behind. Commercial enterprises are already racing ahead, transforming themselves into AI-native organizations. In the private sector, legacy companies are either adapting quickly or being overtaken by startups that build with GenAI from day one. Militaries face a similar future. Forces that fail to adopt AI fast enough will be outpaced by adversaries who apply it not only at the tactical edge but throughout their entire organizational infrastructure.
Mobilization requires bold leadership across all sectors. Leaders must move from discussion to execution. They must be willing to take risks, make procurement decisions, authorize pilots, and scale what works. Industry must also respond by building usable, deployable solutions tailored to the real needs of defense organizations, not theoretical visions. Open standards and collaborative models will accelerate progress. Reinventing everything from scratch will not.
We must act before crisis forces our hand. Waiting until the next emergency to build AI capacity is a strategic error. By then, the time to learn, test, and scale will be gone. GenAI must be introduced, adopted, and normalized before the pressure of real-time conflict exposes the cost of unpreparedness. Mastery comes from calm, iterative use - not rushed deployment under threat.
Breaking through bureaucratic inertia begins with practical application. Use GenAI to accelerate procurement paperwork. Use it to draft strategy documents, process reports, and develop training materials. These small wins accumulate. They build internal confidence and institutional knowledge. The more an organization uses GenAI, the more it learns how to use it better.
AI readiness must become the new standard of military readiness. Just as physical fitness, tactical training, and weapons systems are considered core capabilities, so too must GenAI proficiency. Every new software solution will either be built with GenAI or quickly become obsolete. Legacy systems will fade. Forces that equip their personnel with GenAI now will shape the future. Those who wait will follow.
Perfection is not a prerequisite. Rapid deployment of simple, even imperfect, GenAI applications is preferable to waiting for fully integrated solutions that take years to develop. The development cost of GenAI tools is falling dramatically. Many tasks can be automated or accelerated today with solutions built in weeks. Iterate in the field. Improve through feedback. Move fast.
Mobilization must not be a temporary initiative. It must become a standing operation. GenAI should be a top-three priority across every command, agency, and ministry. It will be prioritized universally - whether voluntarily or through necessity. The only question is who will lead and who will lag behind.
Victory in the next conflict will be shaped long before the first shot is fired. Forces that mobilize GenAI across their administrative and decision-making environments will gain the advantage of speed, clarity, and cohesion. They will move faster, plan smarter, and act with confidence. This is how we outpace our adversaries. This is how we win.