Army turns to tech giants to map out AI cyber defenses
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The Army brought in more than a dozen technology and cybersecurity companies this week to advise it on where to invest in automated cyber defenses.
Why it matters: AI advances are forcing military leaders to rethink their defenses, and they can't afford to move at a typical bureaucratic pace.
Driving the news: The Army hosted its second AI tabletop exercise Monday with C-suite leaders from Wiz, Amazon Web Services, Darktrace, Google, OpenAI, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Booz Allen Hamilton, Palo Alto Networks, Veria Labs, Mattermost Federal and Microsoft, officials told reporters Wednesday.
- Two additional industry participants asked not to be named. Government representatives from U.S. Cyber Command, Army Cyber Command and other Pentagon leaders also attended.
- Participants walked through a hypothetical Indo-Pacific crisis, designed and conducted by the Special Competitive Studies Project, examining how AI agents could help fend off continuous cyberattacks, said Brandon Pugh, principal cyber adviser to the Army secretary.
- Much of the discussion focused on how newer AI models are accelerating vulnerability discovery and how those same tools could be used to defend Army systems.
- Following the exercise, the Army plans to begin fielding and testing "two potential units" of agentic AI tools.
What they're saying: "We don't have the luxury of sitting around or having long acquisition pipelines," Pugh told reporters. "We need these capabilities now and we don't need to start from scratch."
- "We can leverage what exists in industry and perhaps pivot and fine tune it for the Army's specific needs."
The big picture: The exercise comes as Washington scrambles to prepare for a wave of AI-driven cyberattacks following the release of the advanced Mythos Preview model and OpenAI's GPT-5.4-Cyber earlier this month.
- The White House is working on a plan to sidestep the Pentagon's decision to designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk in part to allow wider government access to Mythos.
- OpenAI and Anthropic have both been briefing lawmakers on the cyber implications of their latest cyber-capable models.
Between the lines: The Army used the exercise to better understand how AI could secure its networks, not how it might be deployed offensively on the battlefield, officials said.
- "We are in the very nascent stage of figuring out how to defend the AI we're using," Lt. Gen. Christopher Eubank, commanding general for Army Cyber Command, told reporters. "What we thought was probably 12-to-18 months out has arrived today when it comes to AI and agentic AI."
Zoom in: Officials added that the exercise explored deception tactics — including how to lure and manipulate adversarial AI agents — and how those techniques could pair with automated defenses.
- The group also discussed which processes could eventually be fully automated.
- "It's not just about augmenting the human," Eubank said. "If it is, then we're going to be more behind than we believe."
What's next: Army Cyber Command plans to use its internal testing lab to rapidly pilot new AI tools — potentially in 30- to 90-day cycles — before moving them into formal procurement.
Go deeper: How Cyber Command is building its AI cyber war playbook
