Modernized algorithms and edge computing now empower commanders to process multi-domain sensor data instantly, accelerating lethal decision-making while maintaining critical human oversight during high-stakes tactical operations.
C-2 Essay: Command and Control Modernization Series
By Kris Osborn, Warrior
“Adaptive and agentic command and control that is AI-enabled,” — U.S. Army
Beneath the highly visible and much discussed way AI-enabled systems help “guide drones,” “verify targets,” “streamline sensor-to-shooter time” and massively speed up missile defense and interceptor launches …there is a lesser recognized yet critical element of AI-integration which often gets overlooked related to AI and “Command and Control.”
AI-enabled command and control is technically complex, as it requires interfaces, gateways, common standards and advanced algorithms able to collect, organize and transmit time-sensitive data. Increasingly, analytics fundamental to AI are taking place at the forward tactical edge of combat, a development which requires new applications of hardware, software and AI-empowered computing.
The applications of AI-to Command and Control are multi-faceted and paradigm-changing, in large measure because Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (PED) is now operating in smaller form factors at forward combat locations facing hostile fire, integrating into drones, unmanned surface and land systems, weapons-mounted sensors and on-the-move ground, surface and air platforms. This has been enabled by new generations of advanced algorithms and methods of greatly reducing the hardware footprint to perform a much greater number of functions in a smaller form factor.
“We need to be able to absorb and make sense really quickly of what those sensors are seeing from space, stratosphere, air, maritime, terrestrial and then be able to process that and quickly push it to the best shooter." Maj. Gen. Bernard J. Harrington, Commanding General, 7th Infantry Division, Multi-Domain Command – Pacific (MDC-PAC), told reporters in a July 2026 engagement.
Generative AI
The use of generative AI is already embedded in the creation and streamlining of the Multi-Domain Pacific Command. Every commander’s update starts with a “data minute,” where, as U.S. Army Pacific Commander Gen. Ronald Clark explains, they “spend time digging into use cases associated with generative or agentic AI.” The increasing autonomy of AI, both as a technological question and an ethical question, has long lingered throughout the recent emergence of precision drone targeting. The focus has shifted from whether AI is a “beneficial” asset to AI as a “necessary” asset, but with questions of oversight. The prevailing Pentagon and Army consensus is that the technical merits with AI must be balanced alongside the primacy of human decision making. This appears to be a key focus with “data minutes” as the Army moves quickly to integrate generative AI.
Additionally, while largely automated through AI, there is a human-on-the-loop element, maintaining supervision and outlining the persisting durability of traditional ground forces even as the cross-domain contact layer becomes more autonomous.
With these dual-approach Concepts of Operation, the Army is now leveraging generative AI “data-minutes” to support and accelerate human decision-making by presenting mission analysis and threat scenarios as part of a mission-planning process.
The Army’s approach with “data minutes” seems two-fold; the Army wants to accelerate AI integration while also ensuring human judgement and decision making remains primary. Human cognition is irreplaceable and measures are being taken to ensure the application of AI is in alignment with service’s doctrinal priorities and necessary guardrails. The concept is to optimize high-speed decision-making using both high-speed, AI-enabled computing and the unique irreplaceable elements of human cognition and decision-making. The two, Army and Pentagon leaders maintain, reinforce and support one another.
AI Command & Control & Security
As part of this AI-integration process, the Army is working with industry to address the essential paradox fundamental to high-speed, computerized command and control networking; the added benefits of AI-capable computing offer an immeasurable advantage to combat operations, yet security concerns become more pressing as weapons systems, platforms and communications technologies become more computer reliant. Therefore, new security protocols and methods are increasingly necessary to ensure advanced data processing is protected from potential intruders, jamming or other kinds of interference. At the same time, Army industry partners such as Curtiss-Wright are working with the service to enable secure, interoperable, AI-empowered command and control. Significantly, open architecture standards are maintained and upheld with the integration of AI in a manner similar to the engineering and modernization of existing systems and large platforms.
“The AI connects to a system through the open standard interfaces that any other system would connect to, but you're making sure it has the right credentials, just like it were a user,” David Jedynak, Vice President of Strategy, Strategic Planning, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions.
As specialists in high-performing hardware and software central to computing at the edge of combat, Curtiss-Wright works specifically with NSA Dual-Layer Encryption and High Assurance Type 1. Greater volumes of stored and analyzed data, Jedynak explained, requires security authentication procedures and a key recognition of the complexities of how advanced AI functions.
“An interesting idea is to not think of AI as another computer system, but instead think of it as a user like a human that AI needs to have credentials. It needs to be treated as something that could be valuable and something that could be, I'll say, exfiltrating data, moving data around unintentionally,” Jedynak said.
Hardware protection and thermal management are also important to AI-enabled computing at the edge of combat, according a Curtiss-Wright essay, which says “most AI accelerators, GPUs, CPUs and specialized processors are designed for stable, power-rich server farms.” The Curtiss-Wright data goes on to specify that AI-enabled systems require cooling technologies and specially configured materials designed to withstand rugged, harsh, forward computing conditions.
“Rugged AI computing, networking, and secure storage solutions enable UAVs, UGVs, and UUVs to process mission data locally, maintaining performance even in GPS-denied or EW-contested environments. This ensures continuity of navigation, threat response, and route planning under extreme conditions,” the Curtis-Wright essay explains.
Yet another method of hardening AI-integrated command and control, according to Jedynak, is to anticipate potential “failure” modes and “scale” or compartmentalize data to ensure a single breach does not compromise an entire database. The speed of data flow is also significant, as information needs to be processed, organized, scaled and ultimately “streamlined” to human decision-makers in the most optimal fashion.
“It makes sense that humans and AI-capable systems are able to operate with each other in the right sort of time scales, right? A machine may be able to make decisions much faster than the human. How do we make sure that we're throttling the information at the right rate so the human can consume things?” Jedynak said.
This shift toward greater autonomy and increased use of AI, under human supervision, is very much grounded in the belief that soldiers are the key enabler when it comes to ultimate command and control and decision-making authority. Human leadership remains increasingly important as the service greatly increases AI, integration. Emil Michael, undersecretary of war for research and engineering and War Department chief technology officer, outlined that AI use increased by roughly 1,420,000 users, a 1,775% increase over the past calendar year. Michael explains that the Department of War uses AI across three layered dimensions, “ the enterprise level, the intelligence level, and the warfighting level, which he described as the most important of the three.”
The transition to AI-enabled autonomy is one of many difficult questions around the role of human understanding within a process growing ever more tempted by the rapid and free-from-doubt decision-making machines. However, the importance of a human's ability to intercept, as well as the Department of War’s growing efforts to inspire the next generation to learn these systems, upholds the idea that humans should always play a role in the use of lethal force. As stated by U.S. Army Pacific Commander General Ronald Clark, “it’s not about the capabilities of the equipment; it’s about the people who employ it. As a people-centric service, the United States Army puts equipment on people—we don’t put people on equipment.”
