- The Pentagon established the GenAI.mil Task Force to accelerate the adoption of its enterprise-wide generative AI platform GenAI.mil
- The task force, led by Capt. Ryan Hetrick and Capt. Anthony McHugh, has already embedded technical experts into operational units to streamline workflows
- AI will be central to the discussions at the 2026 Air and Space Summit on July 30 and the 2026 Navy Summit on Aug. 27
The Department of War is rapidly implementing artificial intelligence to transform into an AI-first fighting force, leveraging the technology to increase efficiency and lethality and secure a decisive edge in the global race for AI dominance.
As part of the effort, the Pentagon rolled out and mandated the use of GenAI.mil, an enterprise-wide generative AI platform, and established GenAI.mil Task Force, or GenTF.
Led by Army Capt. Ryan Hetrick and Air Force Capt. Anthony McHugh, the task force was given a singular mission: to accelerate the integration of generative AI tools within the defense enterprise.
DOW officials will discuss the growing use of AI to speed up enterprise workflows and to aid in battlefield decision-making at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Air and Space Summit on July 30 and the 2026 Navy Summit on Aug. 27. POC’s service summits will host vital discussions on key military initiatives and technologies revolutionizing how the U.S. deters threats and fights adversaries in all domains. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration Tom Ainsworth and other senior officials from the Air and Space Forces, the Navy and the Marine Corps will be present at the events. Tickets are now available here.
Who Is Capt. Ryan Hetrick?
Prior to leading GenTF, Hetrick served as future operations and AI lead for the Cyber National Mission Force. He also spent a year and a half leading AI integration for the U.S. Cyber Command.
Hetrick has a master’s degree in technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Who Is Capt. Anthony McHugh?
Before landing the role of GenTF operations lead, McHugh served as a decision analyst for the Department of the Air Force, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also held the roles of operations research analyst, flight commander and lead test analyst over his more than 13 years of service to the Air Force.
McHugh holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Air Force Academy and a master’s in econometrics and quantitative economics from New York University.
What Are the Responsibilities of the GenAI.mil Task Force?
According to the Department of War’s Office of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, the task force will embed technical experts into operational units to figure out how AI can be incorporated into mission workflows.
The goal, the CDAO office said, is to “rapidly institutionalize proven AI capabilities and ensure the U.S. remains at the forefront of technological advantage.”
The task force has already begun deploying AI agents into operational workflows at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering shared in a LinkedIn post that task force members were embedded within the 82nd Airborne Division and XVIII Airborne Corps to reduce workflows from days to minutes.
GenTF also participated in Defense Unicorns’ WarHacker, a hackathon where government, industry, academia and non-profit organizations build and deploy warfighter software. Hetrick shared that, of the 57 teams that participated in the event, the task force finished first.
Additionally, GenTF also collaborated with the White House FIFA World Cup Task Force in June, according to Hetrick.
Which AI Tools Are Included in GenAI.mil?
Google’s Gemini for Government was the first AI tool offered to Pentagon personnel via the GenAI.mil platform. Gemini for Government is designed to perform administrative tasks, including conducting risk assessments to guide operational planning.
In March, Google Public Sector announced that Agent Designer, a tool that enables users to build and deploy AI agents in unclassified environments, will be available to Gemini for Government on GenAI.mil. According to Jim Kelly, vice president of federal at Google Public Sector and a Wash100 Award winner, Agent Designer is a no- or low-code tool that will allow DOW personnel to build digital assistants and automate tasks, including producing action item summaries.
DOW has also added xAI for Government, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its own GAMECHANGER AI-powered policy search tool to the platform.
Google Public Sector’s AI head Amina Al Sherif is joining the Connective Tissue: Project Overmatch, CJADC2 and Network-Centric Warfighting panel at the 2026 Navy Summit on Aug. 27. Al Sherif and other speakers from industry and the U.S. military will discuss Project Overmatch and delivering assured command and control, interoperability and software-defined capabilities to the battlefield. Sign up today to join the conversation.
How Has DOW Adopted GenAI.mil?
In line with department-wide and government-wide mandates, DOW components are rapidly implementing GenAI.mil and AI use to support workflows.
In January, the Air Force, the Space Force and the U.S. Marine Corps adopted GenAI.mil as the services’ default enterprise genAI platform. The Department of the Air Force said it is phasing out legacy AI tools, such as the Air Force Research Laboratory-developed NIPRGPT, in favor of GenAI.mil.
A Pentagon official told DefenseScoop in February that all but one of the military services have adopted the platform. Only the Coast Guard, which is considered a military service but operates under the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, has not rolled out GenAI.mil.
As of April, the platform has over 1.2 million discrete users, shared Jacob Glassman, deputy assistant secretary of war for science and technology foundations in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, via DefenseScoop.
Glassman is one of the speakers at the 2026 Air and Space Summit on July 30. The official will discuss military technologies, including AI, on the Win or Lose – The Speed of Military Technology Advancement panel alongside other defense leaders Dr. Robert Antypas of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Dr. GP Sandhoo, director of the Space Development Agency and portfolio acquisition executive for mission warning and tracking. Get your tickets here.
How Does the Pentagon Use GenAI.mil?
Glassman also revealed that GenAI.mil has been critical to DOW operations during Operation Epic Fury. Following the Deferred Resignation Program that caused workforce constraints and the conflict in Iran, the Pentagon deployed 100,000 agents built using GenAI.mil to alleviate the increased workload, the official explained.
For example, Glassman recounted an anecdote about a team responsible for delivering a report to Congress that lacked sufficient manpower.
“I said, ‘use GenAI.mil, do the best you can,’ because I’m not going to go back to Congress and say, ‘No, I’m not going to give you a report.’ I’m going to do the best we can,” he shared. “Sure enough, they came back to me about a week later and said … ‘not only did we generate the report, [but] this is the best report we’ve written in the past five years.’”
Generating reports to Congress is also one of the tasks that Emil Michael, under secretary of war for research and engineering and chief technology officer of the Pentagon, said AI is helping the DOW with. According to the 2026 Wash100 winner, congressionally mandated reports are repetitive and resource-intensive. AI, he added, reduces the burden and frees up workers to do higher-value tasks.
DOW submitted around 1,400 reports to Congress in 2020. For comparison, the Pentagon submitted 500 congressionally mandated reports in 2000, TechRadar reported.
Senior military leaders and defense industry executives will take the stage at the Potomac Officers Club’s DOW summits to examine the challenges that warfighters are facing on the modern battlefield and identify solutions to overcome them. Sign up for the 2026 Air and Space Summit and 2026 Navy Summit to hear more about GenAI.mil, DOW’s plan to become an AI-first fighting force, and how the services are implementing the disruptive technology within.
