Think carefully for a moment; how many conversations about AI have you had in the last 24 hours?
With the pace of development for use cases and applications within the federal government, the number of conversations about AI is likely to exceed the number of minutes in the workday. However, for IT leaders at the Pentagon, that number is surely even higher, because the faster federal defense agencies can operationalize AI, the greater the strategic advantage for the United States.
To provide some guidance on some of the more challenging aspects of integrating and operationalizing AI, GovExec’s Daniela Frye talked with Duncan McCaskill, Vice President of Data Services at Maximus. With just five questions, Frye and McCaskill navigated the challenges and opportunities of the military’s abundance of data and mitigating the impact of legacy technology on AI adoption.
Perhaps the most interesting questions and answers came toward the end of their conversation as McCaskill shared how the Defense Department is partnering with industry to scale AI across missions. McCaskill noted that “what is old is really new again” with the government reaching out to industry in ways not seen since World War II. “General Motors was building tanks; National Cash Register was making small arms … [and] it’s that same type of feel today,” he shared.
Instead of building tanks, McCaskill explained that today, industry is providing in-house advisors and reaching out to move more quickly through activities like the National Defense Industrial Association’s Hackathon, which was sponsored by Maximus. McCaskill explained that these ongoing interactions between government and industry build “deep and abiding relationships” which develops trust and enables new ideas and solutions to move quickly to execution in support of the warfighter, the mission, and the defense of the United States.
As the AI era enters its next iteration and use cases move toward execution, the answers shared by McCaskill in this conversation are vital to the successful use of AI, whether that’s in Large Language Models (LLMs), agentic AI, or an AI modality yet to be developed.
Be sure to watch the video above or check it out on GovExec’s Defense One platform.