Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n
The Air Force\u00a0will soon issue new guidance on\u00a0the use of artificial intelligence and will\u00a0implement a sweeping modernization of Basic Military\u00a0Training by 2027 following a summit of top service leaders.<\/p>\n
Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach and the rest of the service\u2019s top generals and enlisted leaders discussed these\u00a0and other\u00a0major issues\u00a0during\u00a0a\u00a0\u201cCorona\u201d meeting at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, earlier this month.\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n
The semiannual \u201cCoronas\u201d\u00a0include\u00a0members of the\u00a0Air Staff and\u00a0the heads of each major command, plus their command chief master sergeants and other top leaders, discussing\u00a0strategy, policy, readiness, and high-level plans.\u00a0The latest gathering, held June 10-12, featured more than 60 officials, according to a June 26 announcement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe three-day summit provided a decision forum to build on recent policy changes and discuss key areas to ensure a ready and capable force for the future,\u201d according to an Air Force news release.\u00a0<\/p>\n AI Guidance\u00a0<\/p>\n During the summit, Wilsbach announced that Air Force headquarters at the Pentagon will soon issue guidance to \u201cinstitutionalize proven AI best practices currently\u00a0utilized\u00a0across the enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n Specifically, the Air Force announcement notes that a key goal of the guidance will be \u201cto automate repetitive administrative\u00a0tasks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts and Airmen have been eyeing such use cases for several years. Back in 2024,\u00a0then-Air Force Maj. Michael Kanaan, the military deputy CIO of the Pentagon\u2019s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office at the time,\u00a0told the Defense Innovation Board<\/a> that the biggest impact of AI will be on so-called \u201cback office\u00a0functions.\u201d\t\t<\/p>\n By April 2026, users on the Pentagon\u2019s GenAI.mil platform had created more than 100,000 AI \u201cagents\u201d<\/a> to handle automated tasks.\u00a0An Air Force-led\u00a0tech startup has developed its own AI agent \u201cmarketplace\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to help users translate military performance documents into language that civilians can understand for job applications,\u00a0write\u00a0reports, build lesson plans and training schedules, and run administrative tasks for driver certification, among other tasks.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the popularity of AI\u00a0tools has exploded, however,\u00a0Pentagon and Air Force officials have also warned of the need for clear policy and training. Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David R. Wolfe said in May<\/a> that the Air Force is developing a new training program to ensure every Airman is trained to use AI in their everyday work.<\/p>\n The effort is separate from other uses of AI in the military, such as using the technology to help select targets on the battlefield or to control<\/a> the service\u2019s future Collaborative Combat Aircraft fighter drones.<\/p>\n BMT Next<\/p>\n Basic Military Training\u2014boot camp for the Air Force and Space Force\u2014is\u00a0in the midst of\u00a0a major reorganization. Last fall, leaders unveiled what\u00a0they called BMT 2.0<\/a>, with more physical fitness training and a new emphasis on operating in small teams for combat operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the next several months, more changes\u00a0rolled\u00a0out.\u00a0An orienteering exercise was added,\u00a0time spent on drills and inspections were cut, and\u00a0trainees now have a training event under the wings of a C-130\u00a0aircraft.\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n Leaders say the changes are meant to inculcate a sense of \u201cairmindedness<\/a>,\u201d or a shared sense of identity around what it is to be an\u00a0Airman.\u00a0<\/p>\n Officials are\u00a0also\u00a0planning to build<\/a> an \u201cair base training range\u201d complete with two C-130s and two F-16s where trainees will practice basic airfield support skills such as arming and refueling aircraft, repairing bomb-damaged runways, and loading casualties into a cargo aircraft for evacuation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still more changes are in the works.\u00a0The Air Force announcement teased\u00a0that \u201ca comprehensive curriculum update will be implemented for BMT by 2027,\u201d focused on airmindedness, the Air Force core values, and military professionalism.\u00a0<\/p>\n Air Force Special Warfare\u00a0<\/p>\n Another issue highlighted at Corona was the future of Air Force Special Warfare, the service\u2019s\u00a0\u201cground\u00a0combat forces that specialize in airpower application in hostile, denied and politically sensitive environments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Special Warfare includes several different specialties, from\u00a0combat rescue\u00a0to Tactical Air Control Parties\u00a0to\u00a0special tactics.\u00a0In 2019 and 2020, the\u00a0Air Force\u00a0consolidated<\/a>\u00a0some of those into new specialty codes, leading to speculation<\/a> that the service was\u00a0laying\u00a0the groundwork to merge units<\/a> with different specialties.\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n Leaders agreed at the recent Corona that they will not do so, specifically\u00a0stating\u00a0they will keep TACP and combat rescue \u201cGuardian Angel\u201d units separate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c[Guardian Angel] remains focused on personnel recovery, while TACP continues its role in precision strike, distributed command and control and integrating airpower with ground combat,\u201d the announcement states.\u00a0<\/p>\n Audit\u00a0<\/p>\n As the entire Pentagon comes under increasing pressure to pass a clean audit, Wilsbach directed Air Force major command leaders to\u00a0submit\u00a0bimonthly updates on\u00a0their\u00a0financial reporting progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Air Force, along with every other military service besides the Marine Corps, has yet to pass its annual audit\u2014auditors say they have been \u201cunable to express a reliable opinion\u201d\u00a0because the Pentagon\u2019s financial systems are too complex and convoluted to track money accurately.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,47628,25,1237,47629,47630,47631,47632,47633,47634,47635,42252],"class_list":["post-90186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-air-force-special-warfare","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-audit","tag-bmt","tag-bmt-3-0","tag-bmt-next","tag-corona","tag-gen-kenneth-s-wilsbach","tag-guardian-angel","tag-tacp","tag-wright-patterson-air-force-base"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}