“The future of American warfare is here, and it’s spelled AI,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth exclaimed in a video released on X.com. “At the click of a button, AI models on GenAI.mil can be utilized to conduct deep research, format documents, and even analyze video and imagery at unprecedented speed.”

The first AI available on the site will be the government version of Google Gemini, which can handle highly sensitive but unclassified information (what the Pentagon calls IL-5 data). But the Pentagon’s plan is to grow GenAi.mil to offer “several frontier AI capabilities,” the announcement said — and the Department’s chief technology officer, under secretary for research and engineering Emil Michael, wants GenAI for classified data as well.

Michael, a former Uber executive who recently took over the Pentagon’s formerly independent Chief Digital & AI Office, downplayed the previous administration’s efforts to advance artificial intelligence. “For the past five years, the Department has had very little to show in the way of AI,” he told the conference.

Michael had made a similar complaint on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, although he singled out fellow panelist Adm. Sam Paparo and his Indo-Pacific Command as an pathfinder. “For a department of three million people, we’re vastly under-utilizing AI relative to the general population,” Michael said. “Admiral Paparo and his command is probably one of the premier users; they’ve adopted it faster than sort of any other component, because they’ve seen the utility and they’re most urgent about it, and so we work most closely with him, and then we take the learnings that he’s developing and bring it to other places.”

Michael emphasized in both appearances that he wants to apply AI not just to Pentagon business processes — which have a lot in common with the private-sector functions that commercial GenAI is trying to take on — but also for intelligence analysis and even “warfighting” functions like logistics planning and combat simulations.