The Defense Department on Tuesday launched a major push to get military personnel, civilian employees and contractors to use generative artificial intelligence capabilities, located on its own website.
Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government is the first AI capability to be launched on GenAI.mil, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a video posted on social media Tuesday.
“The future of American warfare is here, and it’s spelled AI,” Hegseth said in the video.
“This platform [GenAI.mil] puts the world’s most powerful frontier AI models, starting with Google Gemini, directly into the hands of every American warrior,” he said.
Users must have a common access card from the department to log onto GenAI.mil; it cannot be accessed by unauthorized personnel.
Hegseth said the department is not “sitting idly by” as adversaries take advantage of rapid technological advancements.
“At the click of a button, AI models on GenAI can be utilized to conduct deep research, format documents and even analyze video or imagery at unprecedented speed,” Hegseth said in the video.
In a written statement also released Tuesday by the Pentagon, Hegseth said the department is “pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force.”
The Pentagon also said its AI work followed President Donald Trump’s July order “to achieve an unprecedented level of AI technological superiority.”
Gemini for Government will use “intelligent agentic workflows,” or AI processes where autonomous programming makes decisions and takes actions with minimal human involvement, and will allow defense personnel to experiment more with these capabilities, the department said.
“There is no prize for second place in the global race for AI dominance,” Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said in a 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.”
Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic and OpenAI are some of the other AI programs the department has considered to help with national security missions. Intelligence analysis, logistics and data collection are some of the duties that the department hopes could be improved by using AI.
The Pentagon said it will provide free training to all department employees on how to use the GenAI.mil website. Those training sessions are meant to build employees’ confidence in using AI tools, and teach them how to use those capabilities to their greatest potential.
The department stressed the need for security when using this program, and said all tools on the GenAI website will be considered controlled unclassified information, or CUI, and secured well enough to be used operationally.
Gemini for Government is web-grounded against Google Search to keep the information it produces accurate and dramatically reduce “the risk of AI hallucinations.”
The Pentagon said its Office of Research and Engineering’s AI Rapid Capabilities Cell led to the development of these capabilities.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
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