Military commanders must harness AI to survive battlefield data deluge, Systematic warnsMilitaries that fail to harness AI within their command systems risk ceding battlefield advantage to adversaries who do, a leading defence technology firm has warned.Grant McHerronAustralian Army soldiers use SitaWare Headquarters to monitor real-time positions of friendly and enemy forces during an exercise. Picture: SystematicGift this article3 min read51 minutes agoWith ever increasing quantities of information to process and decreasing reaction times available, commanders must harness AI to strengthen their decision-making or cede the advantage to those that do.Success on the battlefield will not be gained through the provision of more information, as commanders are already becoming overloaded with the volume of information they currently have access to. Modern weapon systems, sensors, platforms and even soldiers themselves feed unprecedented amounts of information in multiple formats to military headquarters. With the proliferation of autonomous and remotely operated systems, this deluge of information is only growing. Promptly identifying the salient items from this info-glut would require more people and time than most militaries can supply. While not yet fully matured, the use of machine learning and AI tools can help reduce cognitive load by rapidly filtering, correlating and prioritising information, allowing commanders to compress their planning and decision cycles to fit within available reaction times. Militaries around the world are becoming aware that they must adopt these tools and work with industry to further develop them if they are to succeed in battle.“AI tools don’t replace the human decision maker or the intuition of a warfighter,” said Systematic vice president business development for Australia Mark Gainsford. “The tools support the commander and their staff and, while you have to train the tools and establish trust, they offer a capacity that humans often cannot provide. AI by itself is not very useful but the combination of data, training, and the human interface is what makes a powerful system.”As Gainsford observed, the tools are not replacing humans but are, instead, augmenting their ability to operate successfully in the modern battlefield where actions and reactions can occur at machine speed. Using AI agents tasked to perform nominated tasks on specific data types, analysis can occur at machine speed with information being fed to additional agents executing parts of the decision support process before presenting prioritised information to headquarters staff. Placing the AI agents within the Command and Control (C2) system removes the need for additional interfaces that can introduce potential issues and delays. “There are AI capabilities embedded into SitaWare products that have been implemented in a way where our user community can develop trust as they work with them,” said Gainsford. “The AI tools work in stepwise processes where users learn how they’re applied and learn to trust the tools.”Depending on the capability, AI analysis tools may be trained using commonly available data. Systematic applies baseline capabilities based on the company’s four decades of experience developing and supporting C2 systems for NATO and Five Eyes militaries. Where required, the tools can then be further trained or refined by users in their secured environments through the application of historical data and data gathered when running the systems during exercises. Working in isolated training environments, agents are tested to verify they are behaving as expected without hallucinations, establishing a level of trust through an iterative process.“Just as you would train new staff,” said Gainsford, “with AI, you need to establish a trust layer by training them a certain way, building up their abilities and observing them to establish their credibility and expected behaviours.”Just as modern C2 systems are facilitating the transition to the dispersed, highly mobile troops and command posts required to survive in modern battlefields, so too does agentic AI represent the next evolution of military decision advantage. If commanders are to operate effectively, accommodating large volumes of information and dramatically reducing reaction times, they will need to make use of trusted AI to analyse and prioritise information for them.“The primacy of a human making decisions, doing so at tempo and communicating intent, is a fundamental of warfare that hasn’t gone away,” said Gainsford. “We’re designing systems to supplement and complement human judgment, not replace it. Everything is oriented on humans using the information that the systems provide to make decisions and ensure there is cohesion across the command structure.”Read related topics:Artificial IntelligenceMore related storiesLand ForcesConverting innovation to capability means quicker thinking, adaptationAustralia’s defence innovation is not the problem – a leading industry executive says slow decision-making is what stops capability reaching the battlefield in time.Read moreLand ForcesShore thing: Army’s new sea and strike forceThe Australian Army is undergoing its most consequential reinvention in generations, shifting from an overseas coalition force to a long-range strike and littoral power.Read more