The continued adoption of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) enterprise generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) platform – GenAI.mil – will depend less on technology and more on training, leadership, and helping personnel understand how the tools can improve their daily work, according to the U.S. Marine Corps’ (USMC) AI lead.
GenAI.mil, launched in late 2025, is the DOD’s enterprise GenAI platform designed to securely bring frontier AI capabilities to military and civilian personnel. The platform is built to process controlled unclassified information and provides users with a secure, military-grade workspace.
“There are all kinds of different people, and Marines out there, and some just jump in and use it. Some don’t. Some are very hesitant,” Maj. Christopher Clark said during MeriTalk’s Shift Happens event on July 14 in Washington, D.C.
To expand AI use, organizations must focus on educating users, addressing concerns, and demonstrating practical applications for the technology, Clark said.
“Training is really the key,” he said. “[It’s] driving the adoption … getting the training out there, answering those questions, making sure that [our workforce] feels comfortable with what they’re doing, how the technology works, and how they can employ it.”
Beyond introductory instruction, Clark said leaders should connect the platform to employees’ day-to-day responsibilities.
“Let’s walk through how they can use [GenAI.mil] in a way that’s useful to them,” Clark said.
He pointed to GenAI.mil’s automation capabilities, including custom agents, an agent designer, application programming interface (API) access. Clark also noted that expanded API access will be released soon that will enable users with scripting experience to build more advanced automations.
Since the DOD launched GenAI.mil, it has been used by 1.5 million personnel, and the department has created more than 100,000 task-specific AI agents in recent months, according to senior DOD officials.
Christina Dance, industry adviser for defense and intelligence at Workday, said the department’s deployment strategy has succeeded because it focuses on administrative tasks rather than placing autonomous AI into operational decision-making.
“They’re not really putting the agentic AI or the agents at the pointy end of the spear, so to speak,” Dance said. “They’re looking at paperwork-type pain points that are universal.”
She said the department’s emphasis on narrowly tailored AI agents has helped make the technology more useful to employees.
But as GenAI becomes more integrated into DOD workflows, Dance said human oversight remains essential.
“Ensuring that the humans are the ones that are using the judgment, and the critical thinking will be a good marriage in those relationships,” she said.
Ultimately, successful adoption comes down to “getting them the tools, then the training, and showing them how to use it,” Clark said.
Under the Trump administration, the DOD has been rebranded as the War Department.