How AI is moving from dashboards to decision advantage across the Pentagon

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept for the Pentagon but is rapidly becoming a foundational capability for national security, particularly in logistics and sustainment missions. That shift was the focus of a recent Scoop News Group podcast conversation with Allan Day, retired U.S. Army major general and vice president for logistics and sustainment industry strategy at Salesforce.

Drawing on his experience as director of operations at the Defense Logistics Agency, Day described how today’s mission challenges demand a break from industrial-era systems and a move toward agentic AI.

“When I [was at DLA], I was responsible for a $41 billion enterprise supporting 2,300 weapon systems globally, with about 89,000 orders coming in a day,” Day says. “You cannot manage that level of complexity with stove-piped industrial-age systems.”

That reality helped shape Salesforce’s Missionforce initiative, which Day described as a direct response to military leaders seeking private-sector speed within defense constraints. “Missionforce helps us optimize mission readiness, logistics, personnel and decision-making by tailoring commercial innovation specifically for the warfighter,” he says.

Day argued that the defense enterprise is now moving from what he called “the information age — where we built dashboards to admire the problem — to the agentic age.” In that new era, the key objective is decision dominance. “Agentic AI doesn’t just summarize facts. It takes action,” he says. “It allows us to move from reacting to crises to orchestrating outcomes.”

That capability is especially critical for logistics and supply chains, where vulnerabilities often emerge faster than humans can detect them. “With agentic AI, we can fuse live streams of data and get clarity in seconds,” Day said. “You can identify vulnerabilities before they become crises.”

He framed AI’s role around three core needs: readiness, resilience and trust. “Our service members spend way too much time acting as the human glue, stitching together data from disconnected legacy systems,” Day says. “We need our people focused on the mission, not on form-filling or inventory counting.”

Resilience is equally essential in what Day described as a “contested logistics environment,” where supply chains can be disrupted by weather, cyber threats or adversary action. “Resilience has to be built in from the beginning, and AI can help us both build and execute it,” he says.

Trust, however, is the deciding factor. “If the warfighter doesn’t trust the data or the algorithm, they won’t use it,” Day says. “Readiness is the what, resilience is the how, but trust is the why.”

Looking ahead, Day said the future of defense AI will hinge on trusted action and operating at the tactical edge. “The future isn’t AI replacing the warfighter,” he says. “It’s enabling the warfighter.”

This is part of FedScoop’s Agentic AI Advantage podcast series, sponsored by Salesforce. Explore more expert perspectives on Agentic AI in government here.

This video podcast was produced by Scoop News Group for FedScoop and underwritten by Salesforce.