The US Army has been all-in on becoming an AI-powered outfit for some time, and now it's creating a career path for officers to specialize in making its automation dreams come true. 

The new AI/ML officer area of concentration will begin accepting candidates from the Army's existing officer corps in January through the Volunteer Transfer Incentive Program, according to an announcement published Tuesday. It's not clear how many AI officers the Army plans to train as part of its initial cadre of candidates, but it wants to have all of them formally reclassified by the end of the 2026 fiscal year. 

Training will be at the "graduate level," according to the Army, and will focus on giving AI officer candidates "hands-on experience in building, deploying, and maintaining the Army's cutting-edge AI-enabled systems." 

As we've reported over the past couple of years, those systems are numerous. The Army has signed deals with OpenAI to run pilot programs in developing warfighting and enterprise domain AI systems, has signed a massive $10 billion contract with Palantir to provide various AI and ML services for the next decade, and has brought in smaller outfits to use AI for things like target tracking. 

Young Bang, the US Army's deputy assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics, and technology under the Biden administration, said last year that the Army didn't want to get into the business of developing its own AI systems when the private sector was already doing such a great job.

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"We want to adopt third-party-generated AI algorithms as fast as y'all are building them," Bang told the industry at an AWS conference last summer. 

In short, there are a lot of commercial AI systems floating around in the Army's ecosystem but, until later next year, no dedicated force of uniformed experts with the expertise and career longevity the branch needs to get them working at peak efficiency. 

"Establishing the … AI/ML career path is another key investment to maintain our decisive edge as an Army," Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Orlandon Howard said in the Army's statement. "We're building a dedicated cadre of in-house experts who will be at the forefront of integrating AI and machine learning across our warfighting functions."

We suppose the Army could only get so much work out of a bunch of weekend warrior Silicon Valley types who never went through the most basic of officer training before earning their Lieutenant Colonel commissions in a Reserve detachment, where they serve as AI planning and ops consultants.

The actual Army officers who'll be filling the roles of AI/ML experts for the rest of the service can theoretically come from any background, though the Army said it'll be prioritizing volunteers "with advanced academic and technical backgrounds in fields related to AI/ML." ®