DoD cyber strategy will set a ‘clear and specific vision’ for AI to enable the force: Official

BALTIMORE — The forthcoming Department of Defense cyber strategy will set a course outlining the role artificial intelligence will play for the cyber force going forward, according to a senior official.

“As we’re working on our new Department of War cyber strategy that’s in development right now, we are going to set a very clear and specific vision for how we need to enable AI for this force,” Katie Sutton, assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy and principal cyber advisor, said here at the TechNet Cyber conference today. “We will also set out a very clear vision for this new operational partnership that we’re going to need to have with industry.”

Sutton announced in congressional testimony in April that the department is working on an updated cyber strategy, the first since 2023. The White House released its cyber strategy for America in March.

She added that while historically that strategy has tended to focus on the cyber community, the intent now is to focus it on the rest of the department, meaning its contents will apply to personnel and commanders in other domains. Sutton has made a point of integrating cyber across the department and into operations ensuring it is a core aspect of planning and consideration by all.

Beyond the policy portion of her job, Sutton explained that as the principal cyber advisor, she has authority, direction and control over US Cyber Command and its enhanced budget authority to help drive AI adoption through its budget and aligning resources.

Those are “really a very powerful combination of authorities that exist in my office, and allows us to really move at the speed that we’re going to need to, to address these threats, rather than to have different organizations coordinate,” she said.

Lastly, that principal cyber advisor role allows her to coordinate across the department with other organizations such as the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the Chief Data and AI Office and the office of the chief information officer so efforts aren’t duplicated.