Skip to content
a16za16z

Emil Michael: The Department of War Is Moving Faster Than Silicon Valley on AI | The a16z Show

This conversation with Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and acting director of the Defense Innovation Unit, was recorded at the a16z American Dynamism Summit in Washington, D.C. Michael walks through how he inherited a department running 14 undefined technology priorities, cut them to six, and made applied AI number one. He also gives the first detailed account of why commercial AI contracts written under the previous administration created a vendor-lock crisis that put active military operations at risk. Timestamps: 0:00—Introduction 2:50—Why Wartime Speed Matters 5:20—Cutting Priorities to Six 7:22—Applied AI Across Defense 9:17—Commercial Models and Lock-In 14:39—Democratic Oversight and Guardrails 19:30—Fixing Procurement Bureaucracy 22:08—What Startups Must Deliver Read the full transcript here: https://www.a16z.news/s/podcast Resources: Follow Emil Michael on X: https://x.com/USWREMichael Follow David Ulevitch on X: https://x.com/davidu Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

Emil MichaelguestDavid Ulevitchhost
Mar 12, 202626mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Defense AI adoption needs wartime speed, democratic control, vendor diversity

  1. Michael argues the post–Cold War “peacetime speed” and industry consolidation left the U.S. needing rapid re-domestication of critical supply chains and faster modernization to meet China’s buildup.
  2. He describes refocusing the CTO agenda from 14 vague priorities to six, with applied AI as the top item and rapid expansion of AI usage across the department.
  3. He highlights risks from commercial model terms and single-vendor dependence, including operational constraints and the danger of a vendor effectively controlling mission-critical behavior.
  4. He frames AI as a foundational “substrate” akin to the internet, insisting lawful military use must be governed by democratic institutions rather than corporate “constitutions.”
  5. He outlines procurement reforms (simpler requirements, firm fixed-price, faster yes/no decisions) and calls on startups to build scalable manufacturing and production discipline, not just prototypes.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Wartime speed is now a structural necessity, not a slogan.

Michael ties urgency to China’s historic buildup and U.S. dependence on external supply chains (e.g., batteries, minerals), arguing defense readiness requires rebuilding domestic capacity while modernizing quickly.

Focus beats breadth: cutting priorities is a force-multiplier.

He reduced 14 legacy “techno-babble” priorities to six to make execution and workforce motivation feasible, placing applied AI at the top to drive near-term impact on combat power and the industrial base.

AI value in defense spans back office to battlefield decision support.

He separates use cases into enterprise productivity, intelligence analysis (e.g., training on decades of satellite imagery for anomaly detection), and warfighting/logistics planning, emphasizing human decision enhancement rather than replacement.

Single-vendor AI in sensitive missions creates operational and sovereignty risk.

Michael describes a “holy cow” review of prior contracts where extensive usage restrictions and lock-in could theoretically interrupt operations mid-mission, making national security dependent on one provider’s terms and enforcement mechanisms.

Democratic governance must define lawful AI use—not corporate policy documents.

He argues that when AI becomes a pervasive substrate, it cannot be constrained by a vendor’s “constitution” in ways that override laws passed by Congress and executed by the government, especially in command-and-control contexts.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

So then we're faced with the biggest military buildup in history... and we didn't catch up. So all of a sudden, we've outsourced a lot of our key, uh, domestic production on many different areas... And then you look up, and you're like, "Ho-holy cow, we've got a lot of catching up to do."

— Emil Michael

We got them down to six, and they were the places where I thought we had the, the greatest opportunity for change and for growth and impact on our combat power and for our industrial base. And that was the starting point. And applied AI was number one.

— Emil Michael

We've kind of in ninety days, I think we've had one point two million of the three million people at the department use some form of AI. When that was-... That number was eighty thousand before I started.

— Emil Michael

It was a vendor lock situation with terms that, in theory, if the model was designed to turn off when you violated the terms, could just stop in the middle of an operation and put lives at risk.

— Emil Michael

The software, the soul, someone's soul of their model, their constitution, which is not the US Constitution, can't be dictating our command and control environment and telling generals and warfighters what to do and not do.

— Emil Michael

Peacetime vs wartime operating tempoDefense industrial base consolidation and re-domesticationPriority reduction from 14 to 6Applied AI: enterprise, intelligence, warfightingCommercial model terms, restrictions, and kill-switch riskVendor lock-in and multi-vendor strategyProcurement reform: requirements simplification and fixed-price contractingStartup readiness: scaling manufacturing and qualityDemocratic oversight, civil liberties, and guardrailsAdversary adoption and stolen models without guardrails

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome