"Long known for its massive scale and bureaucratic complexity, the Pentagon is slowly transforming itself into a more streamlined organization, much like a Silicon Valley company. The "fail fast" mentality, once confined to startups, is taking root in the Department of War, previously known as the Department of Defense, thanks to AI and other systems that are revolutionizing the way the U.S. approaches global conflicts, speakers at the Fortune Most Powerful Women conference said on Tuesday."
"Radha Iyengar Plumb, a former chief digital and AI intelligence officer at the Pentagon who is now the vice president of AI-first transformation at IBM said the Pentagon is in some ways similar to a $1 trillion business. It has about three million employees, more ground vehicles than FedEx, and a supply chain three times larger than that of Walmart. Yet, for years, the massive amount of data linked to its operations was handled manually and inefficiently."
"Analysts would "literally swivel chair between multiple different computers" to gather intelligence and paste it into PowerPoint slides, she noted. "When it is the world around you that is changing over time, that swivel chair just gets updated slowly," Plumb said. "People don't have full information about the world around them and that makes it harder to make good decisions.""
The Pentagon is shifting from bureaucratic complexity toward a leaner, Silicon Valley–style organization. AI and other systems are enabling a 'fail fast' mentality previously confined to startups. The department resembles a $1 trillion business with about three million employees, enormous vehicle fleets, and a vast supply chain, but data handling remained manual and inefficient. Analysts historically switched among multiple computers to assemble intelligence and paste it into PowerPoint. Consolidation efforts like Project Maven and contractors such as Palantir are integrating AI into battlefield operations. Modernization requires cultural change and greater willingness by government and Congress to accept risk.
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