Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning , Government , Industry Specific

DOD Testing Generative AI Tools to Enhance Contracting

Pentagon Is Testing Generative AI to Streamline, Enhance Contracting Operations
DOD Testing Generative AI Tools to Enhance Contracting
The Department of Defense launched the Chief Digital and AI Office in June 2022. (Image: Shutterstock)

The U.S. Department of Defense is testing new generative artificial intelligence tools to streamline a wide variety of contracting and management operations, an official from the Chief Digital and AI Office said Thursday.

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Stephanie Wilson, a DOD agreements officer overseeing the department's implementation of AI technologies, said her team is currently developing "new generative AI contract writing systems" to allow contracting employees to more efficiently review and finalize contracts, grants and other transactional agreements.

"For us, bringing in generative AI into the federal workspace does not necessarily mean taking over jobs," Wilson said at an event on the federal use of generative AI hosted by the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center. "What it means is making the lives better for the people are working for us now, and freeing up the space for them to critically think."

DOD launched the Chief Digital and AI Office in June 2022, combining four predecessor organizations - the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Defense Digital Service, Office of the Chief Data Officer and the Advana analytics program. The office works in part to resolve long-standing issues the department has faced in addressing critical cybersecurity gaps and implementing secure, scaleable AI solutions.

The use of AI tools across the department could help contracting officers conduct more thorough market research, according to Wilson, enabling the DOD to make better-informed procurement decisions about the latest emerging technologies.

Recent reports indicate the department is lagging in its procurement of new technologies amid continued cybersecurity failures across its weapon systems acquisition processes (see: Pentagon Cybersecurity, Workforce Woes Threaten Tech Rollout).

Wilson said her office is also exploring how the department can use generative AI to structure vast troves of previously stored datasets the government owns that remain unlabeled. The Defense Department currently maintains a significant amount of large datasets, such as satellite imagery, intelligence reports and operational data, all of which could benefit from advanced AI structuring to improve accessibility and organization.

"A lot of that data has turned dirty. A lot of that data is still unstructured. A lot of it is unlabeled," Wilson said. "How do we say that we have lessons learned when we don't even really have a basic repository in which we can do the restructuring of the data?"


About the Author

Chris Riotta

Chris Riotta

Managing Editor, GovInfoSecurity

Riotta is a journalist based in Washington, D.C. He earned his master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he served as 2021 class president. His reporting has appeared in NBC News, Nextgov/FCW, Newsweek Magazine, The Independent and more.




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