Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept for the Department of Defense, but is rapidly becoming a fundamental national security capability, especially in logistics and sustainment missions. This change was the focus of a recent Scoop News Group podcast conversation with Alan Day, a former U.S. Army major general and vice president of logistics and sustainability industrial strategy at Salesforce.
Drawing on his experience as director of operations for the Defense Logistics Agency, Day explained how today’s mission challenges require a move away from industrial-age systems and toward agent-based AI.
“I [was at DLA]”I was in charge of a $41 billion company that supported 2,300 weapons systems around the world, with about 89,000 orders coming in a day.” “Industrial-era systems plumbed with stoves can’t manage that level of complexity,” Day says.
This reality helped shape Salesforce’s Missionforce initiative. Day described this as a direct response to military leaders seeking the speed of the private sector amid defense constraints. “Missionforce helps optimize mission readiness, logistics, personnel and decision-making by tailoring commercial innovation specifically for the warfighter,” he says.
Day argued that defense companies are now moving from what he called the “information age, where we built dashboards to glorify problems, to the age of agents.” A key goal in that new era is decision-making superiority. “Agent AI doesn’t just summarize facts; it takes action,” he says. “This allows us to move from responding to crises to coordinating outcomes.”
This capability is especially important in logistics and supply chains, where vulnerabilities often emerge faster than humans can detect them. “Agent AI allows us to fuse live streams of data and make them clear in seconds,” Day says. “You can identify vulnerabilities before they become a crisis.”
He framed the role of AI around three core needs: responsiveness, resilience, and trust. “Our military members serve as the human glue, spending too much time piecing together data from disconnected legacy systems,” Day said. “Employees need to be focused on the mission, not filling out forms or counting inventory.”
Resilience is equally essential in what Day described as a “competitive logistics environment” where supply chains can be disrupted by weather, cyber threats and hostile acts. “Resiliency needs to be built in from the beginning, and AI can help build and execute it,” he says.
However, trust is the deciding factor. “If warfighters don’t trust the data or the algorithms, they won’t use it,” Day says. “Preparation is the what you do, resilience is the how, but trust is the why.”
Looking ahead, Day said the future of defense AI lies in trustworthy behavior and operating at the tactical edge. “The future is not about AI replacing combatants,” he says. “It enables the fighter.”
This is part of FedScoop’s Agentic AI Advantage podcast series, sponsored by Salesforce. Read more about expert perspectives on Agentic AI in government here.
This video podcast is produced by Scoop News Group for FedScoop and underwritten by Salesforce.
