The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) plans to pilot an artificial intelligence (AI) prototype to serve as a “digital concierge” to enhance its workforce’s capabilities, an agency official said.
Steve Wallace, DISA’s chief technology officer and director of the agency’s emerging technology directorate, explained during an AFCEA event on Jan. 25 that the AI digital concierge will take data from controlled unclassified information, documents, and other sources, drop them into a database and “then have a large language model bang against that database and present the user with answers.”
DISA plans to launch an internal prototype of the concierge AI across the agency within the first half of fiscal year 2024 – or by the end of March 2024.
Wallace explained that the AI digital concierge has many use cases, including maintaining after action reports.
DISA first broached the subject of a digital concierge supported by AI and large language models in November 2023, during DISA’s forecast to industry event. Back in November Wallace explained that the idea of a “concierge AI is… having the business side of the house that ChatGPT-like experience of being able to interact and ask questions of data sets.”
Overall, leveraging AI technologies and capabilities is a priority for DISA in FY2024. In its FY2024 tech watchlist – an annual broad inventory of over two dozen new technologies the agency has identified as areas of interest – DISA lists several items covering specific capabilities and issues related to AI, including leveraging large language models.
“DISA is interested in seeing how [AI] rides side-saddle with our folks, regardless of their function,” Wallace said.
According to Wallace, DISA is trying to understand how it will insert AI into its capabilities, and that the latest version of the technology watchlist will help with that effort.
DISA Director Gen. Robert Skinner explained during the same AFCEA event that the combat support agency wants to leverage “AI and the products and capabilities that we have to make our force more agile and more effective.”
The move for a more comprehensive approach comes as the Defense Department pushes for improved and responsible deployment of AI – outlined in the Department’s Data, Analytics, and AI Adoption Strategy, released Nov 2, 2023.
