Identifying Opportunities for Pentagon Digital Transformation Through Workflow Mapping

The Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering’s (USW(R&E)) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) is responsible for accelerating DoW adoption of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) from the boardroom to the battlefield to enable decision advantage. To meet their mission, USW(R&E) CDAO partnered with the SEI to develop a process for identifying opportunities for technology streamlining and AI integration within operational workflows.

“We’re working with mission partners to navigate the AI landscape, understand barriers to AI adoption, and reveal innovation opportunities that are user-centered and technically feasible,” explained Violet Turri, an engineering team lead in the SEI’s AI Division. During an initial three-month engagement, SEI AI Division researchers conducted two on-site visits to meet with mission partners in their operational environments, observe real-world workflows, and capture technical details of their processes. The SEI team then analyzed those processes to identify gaps and opportunities for AI innovation.

This work provides USW(R&E) CDAO with a playbook for mapping operational workflows and identifying areas for AI innovation, furthering a recommended policy action under the White House’s AI Action Plan. Lincoln Davidson, acting chief of strategy, analysis, and resources within USW(R&E) CDAO’s Policy Directorate, praised the team’s effort. “Excellent work—this is a boon to USW(R&E) CDAO, the department, and our support to the warfighter.”

In the next phase of their work, the team will map pre- and post-agentic AI workflows and identify organizational and policy changes necessary to enable frontier AI adoption in the DoW.