The United States leads the world in frontier artificial intelligence. However, cutting edge technology used by a limited number of people is a trophy, not a capability – and the contest with China will not be decided only at the frontier. History is unambiguous on this point: the nations that rise during technological revolutions are not always those that invent the breakthrough, but rather the ones that adopt it fastest across their institutions. For the U.S. military, that distinction is now the central question of its advantage.

If the most sophisticated technology on earth reaches only a fraction of the force, how much advantage does it confer? How is the Pentagon moving from procuring AI to diffusing it across the force? What cultural and organizational changes does an “AI-first” military require? And how does the United States build and keep the technical talent inside government, turning tools into outcomes before its competitors close the gap?

To discuss these questions and others, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) hosts a conversation with FDD Visiting Military Analyst Major Megan “Napalm” Hainline, F-16 instructor pilot and AI leader; FDD Adjunct Senior Fellow Isaac “Ike” Harris, executive director of the Frontier Security Institute; and Leah Siskind, FDD AI research fellow. The discussion will be moderated by RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, senior director of FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation.

For more, check out: https://www.fdd.org/events/2026/10/01/winning-the-adoption-war-diffusing-ai-across-the-us-military/