9 The DOD has a unique window to prepare for and capture the roll-out of this technology, but it will be a complex process. With a workforce of 2.8 million people split across active duty, reserve, and civilian functions,7 and a combined budget exceeding $849 billion, the Department of Defense is the largest organization in the continental Americas by both workforce and budget second only to the federal workforce,8 representing the cumulative headcount and budget equivalent of multiple Fortune 100 companies.9 Rolling out Gen-AI tools across the organization will take years, and it will impact how the DOD’s enterprise and mission functions organize logistics, process documentation, strategize and plan, train, budget, act, and more. We estimate that across the military’s active duty and civil service branches, Gen-AI tools could increase output by as much as 17%.10 Modernizing the organization into a Gen-AI leader could represent the largest dual-use technology migration into a single entity in US history. Succeeding in this transformation, and the lessons distilled from it, are not only critical to US national security, but also for organizations beyond the DOD, including the private sector. This paper discusses the current approach the DOD is taking to integrate Gen-AI and proposes a potential integration framework meant to be deployed across multiple areas of the organization. We begin by discussing the current state of the DOD’s transformation, based on unclassified public information, and provide a brief perspective on both the efficacy and execution risks of these current efforts. We then propose a framework intended to mitigate these risks, while also remaining accretive to the existing and extensive efforts upon which the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Chief Digital Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) are already executing. Last, we conclude with a discussion of what parallels the private sector can derive from this proposed framework, and how companies can apply the principles to serve a broad set of industries. Generative AI Adoption in the US Military We estimate that across the military’s active duty and civil service branches, Gen-AI tools could increase output by as much as 17%.