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The Department of the Air Force’s Office of the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer announced April 20 that it has publicly released its Data and AI Strategies, a pair of guiding documents intended to move the service toward becoming an AI-first force.
Framed as a unified roadmap, the strategies are designed to accelerate both enterprise and combat capabilities and sharpen decision-making against near-peer competitors. According to the department, they align with the 2026 National Defense Strategy and the 2026 AI Strategy for the Department of War, supporting the Secretary of War’s priorities to revive the warrior ethos and reestablish deterrence through technological superiority.
“Our focus is not on developing AI for its own sake, but on rapidly delivering tangible, combat-ready capabilities that solve real-world operational problems,” said Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink in the AI Strategy’s forward. “By becoming an AI-first force, we will empower our warfighters to out-think, out-maneuver, and out-pace any adversary.”
The documents lay out AI priorities across mission areas from training and readiness to multi-domain operations. They underscore treating data as a strategic asset and call for a decentralized data architecture intended to get trusted information to operators at the speed of mission, reflecting the department’s view that data is the ammunition of modern warfare.
“In today’s complex global security environment, data and artificial intelligence are no longer support functions—they are the foundation of our strategic overmatch” said Susan Davenport, the DAF’S chief data and AI officer. “Execution of these strategies ensure the Department of the Air Force remains agile and decisively ahead of pacing threats.”
The office said implementation of the strategies advances its fiscal year 2026 goal to institutionalize data and AI as core mission components. The effort builds on the Secretary of War’s “Speed Wins” priority by pushing AI-enabled capabilities to operators at an unrelenting pace to secure future advantage.
