Austin, Texas – Army Reserve Soldiers leveraged cutting-edge technology to modernize administrative and planning tasks and demonstrated new artificial intelligence applications at a joint code-a-thon held at Google offices in Austin on May 14, 2026.
Lt. Col. Jason Kim, deputy commander and AI product director for the 75th U.S. Army Reserve Innovation Command’s Army Reserve Applications Group (AAG), led the event and provided commands with a comprehensive overview of the AI tools developed during the session. The leaders’ visit highlighted the strategic importance of integrating advanced digital capabilities into standard military operations.
Code-a-thons are designed to foster innovation and enhance collaboration across AAG, with a focus on developing innovative in-house technology solutions. Soldiers experimented with practical AI applications to streamline daily management and operational tasks, ultimately increasing efficiency, accuracy, and overall mission readiness.
“The code-a-thon is designed to foster innovation and collaboration among personnel by exploring practical uses of artificial intelligence,” Kim said while briefing leaders on the unit’s progress.
“As AI continues to disrupt commercial industries at a breakneck pace, it is critical that current and future soldiers learn how to leverage these very same capabilities to solve the Army’s tactical and operational problems,” Kim said.
“We are no longer operating in a vacuum; we are actively competing with global adversaries who are leveraging these same low-barrier-to-entry commercial AI tools to exploit our tactical and administrative asymmetries,” he explained.
This year’s Code-A-Thon is the fourth time AAG has hosted it, and it took eight months of intensive planning and coordination to execute an event of this technical level within a military framework.
Planning/coordination
Planning efforts focused not only on logistics, but also on creating a modern engineering environment. To achieve this, Kim outlined some key planning steps.
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Investigate complex real-world Army problem statements in detail with rapid coordination with operational partners.
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Build on your existing foundation to run your technical product development teams using the exact same best practices and agile frameworks you run in your commercial environment.
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Coordinate and establish a secure open internet development environment and infrastructure that gives AAG teams direct access to best-in-class, commercial-grade AI models.
Kim said the two-week code-a-thon is built around two central objectives, both aimed at enhancing the Army Reserve’s ability to rapidly innovate and retain top technical talent.
“Our first goal is to train how to fight“We wanted to show how highly specialized technical soldiers, combined with top-level AI capabilities, can be operationalized to solve real-world friction points,” Kim explained. He noted that retaining elite technical talent requires giving soldiers meaningful technical problems rather than traditional non-technical tasks.
“This training demonstrated how technical soldiers can be combined with traditional Army problems and completely reimagined with an AI-first mindset,” he said.
Kim also emphasized the second goal. It’s about demonstrating the Army Reserve’s ability to make rapid, tangible progress when traditional acquisition processes typically take much longer. “We wanted to prove that our troops can create real value for the Army in a fraction of the time it normally takes,” Kim said. “And this code-a-thon demonstrated just that.”
While physical challenges are often the backbone of traditional military team building, dynamic changes occur within technical units. According to Kim, nothing builds cohesion faster than “high-stakes, time-sensitive product and engineering sprints.”
“When you throw 15 highly motivated individuals into a room and tell them to build and operate advanced AI models from scratch, such as our new multimodal video RAG engine, we find that barriers quickly disappear,” Kim said.
In a code-a-thon environment, software engineers, product managers, data scientists, and military experts had to learn each other’s languages and rely on each other’s specialized skills. As the team pushed toward tight deadlines, the Soldiers frequently worked late into the night, creating a level of urgency rarely seen in traditional training environments.
“This kind of pressure creates trust quickly,” Kim explained. “The mutual respect and common purpose that developed during this sprint went far beyond what could be gained from classroom instruction.”
This experience not only strengthened technical cooperation, he added, but also demonstrated what modern Army teams can accomplish when they unite around mission-focused engineering challenges.
During the event, Soldiers created several advanced prototypes, including a video search enhancement generation video tool for MP tactical operations known as MP Sentinel -Video RAG, a TA-50 computer vision application designed to eliminate inventory taxes and system overload, and a “Soldier Passport” system built to streamline administrative readiness.
team building
As the code-a-thon progressed, Kim’s unit leaders emphasized how the event not only accelerated technological innovation, but also demonstrated the depth of technical expertise within the Army Reserve. Maj. Eric Metzler, the innovation team lead assigned to AAG Mountain View Battalion and led a team of data scientists throughout the sprint, said the experience highlighted the unique advantages reservists bring to solving complex problems.
“Leading a team of data scientists on some of the Army Reserve’s most difficult problems was extremely rewarding,” Metzler said. “There is a wealth of talent in the Reserves, and being able to point their talents and AAG civilian experience to real-world problems is a great position. We have a clear mission to use new technology to stay ahead of the next fight, and AAG Soldiers take that seriously.”
Metzler said the opportunity to lead a cutting-edge AI development team was something he never expected at this point in his military career. “Honestly, I didn’t see anything like this happening at this stage,” he said.
“I’ve served on active duty as a field artillery officer, so working on technical problems with a talented reserve team is a big change,” said Metzler, who also serves as an Army civilian data scientist for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command.
He explained that when he moved into the Army Reserve six years ago, he never imagined he would be building a proof of concept for AI or challenging senior leaders to rethink the future of training and combat. “I am grateful to continue to serve and continue to fight in new ways,” he added.
OSJ 26 Video Lag Demo
The code-a-thon also served as an important rehearsal with AAG leadership for one of the unit’s most important upcoming milestones: the unveiling of the Video-RAG prototype at OSJ 26. OSJ 26 (June 7-20) is a historic milestone as the largest training event in U.S. Army Reserve history with an estimated participation of more than 12,000 soldiers. This large-scale exercise consists of combat support training exercises, global medics, and dedicated technology assessments. Together, these elements provide a high-fidelity, multi-level, joint operations environment specifically designed to increase force readiness for large-scale combat operations.
Through the codeathon, Kim’s team of innovators refined both the technical performance of the video RAG system and its accompanying operational narrative in preparation for high-level briefings to the 200th MP Corps, 75th Army commander and deputy commander, and 75th Army commander. The added layer of purpose transformed the event from a development sprint to a strategic showcase, ensuring the team was fully prepared to demonstrate how AI-driven tools can directly enhance military police operations.
Col. Christopher Christian, then AAG commander and commander of the 75th U.S. Army OSJ 26 Task Force, provided guidance on the details to focus on when presenting at OSJ 26, noting what talking points to expand upon during briefings to generals.
“Lt. Col. Kim’s team did an outstanding job given the time they had. In addition to preparing a presentation for Video RAG, they also prepared demos of two other AI applications for the AAG leadership visit. This shows what highly capable Soldiers can do when equipped with the right AI tools,” Christian said.
“Based on what I saw today, I am confident that Lt. Col. Kim and his team will capture the key points of the video RAG demonstration as they present to the generals at OSJ.”
OSJ 26 Video RAG Presentation
Based on Col. Christian’s confidence in his team’s readiness, the presentation at OSJ 26 was a pivotal opportunity for Lt. Col. Kim and his team of innovators to realize the full potential of the Video RAG system. Building on the momentum generated during the code-a-thon, Kim’s briefing moved from development to operational impact, highlighting how the prototype directly supports military police readiness and enhances mission performance.
His presentation served not only as a demonstration of technological accomplishments, but also as a positive example of how advanced AI capabilities can be integrated into large-scale training environments to meet the Army Reserve’s emerging priorities.
“The announcement at Sentinel Justice 26 was an incredible milestone because it fully validated our hypothesis: The future of Army Reserve exercises must feature technical Soldiers and operators co-building AI solutions at the tactical edge.5 by just four AAG Soldiers. The day-long development sprint was more than just a technology demo, it was a blueprint for what future collective training could look like,” said Kim.
“Approaching traditional workflows with an AI-first mindset removes many of the repetitive tasks that take focus away from the core warfighting force,” he added.
The support from AAG and the 75th USARIC senior leadership has been a masterclass in driving organizational agility. After the OSJ 26 presentation, Kim said that their support was a great help.
“It was an absolute privilege to have the opportunity to share that vision with the 200th MP Command’s senior leadership and demonstrate the art of the possible,” Kim said.
