‘Digital employees’ are coming to the Defense Logistics Agency

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, Defense Logistics Agency director, visits with service members at Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia, in 2024. DoD / Nicholas Pilch

Nearly 200 agentic-AI bots are already running autonomously as the combat support agency pushes ahead with AI-powered tools, CIO says.

The Defense Logistics Agency is piloting “digital employees”: AI agents that work autonomously, the agency’s chief information officer said.

“This is a new frontier for everyone,” Adarryl Roberts said during a press briefing at DLA’s Industry Collider Day on Sept. 9 in Alexandria, Va.

The move builds on DLA’s increasing use of robotic process automation, or RPA, and the generative AI tools available to its 25,000 or so military and civilian personnel. In 2025, bots saved DLA an estimated 300,000 hours of work—some working around the clock to help the combat support agency get everything from food and fuel to medical supplies and clothing where it needs to go.

“We have approximately 185 to 190 bots that are running. I’d say about 90% to 95% of those are unattended bots,” Roberts said. “So, we really cracked the nut to have those unattended. Now, we’re moving from the bots to, ‘How can we have agentic agents working across [the department], based upon our data? So, we’re early in that journey.”

Military-specific versions of ChatGPT and Grok recently joined Gemini on the platform that gives defense workers access to generative-AI tools for information that is sensitive but unclassified. DLA gets its workers up to speed on these tools through “GenAI 101 training,” Roberts said.

“I would look at generative AI as the concept of making the workforce and agency—from an operating model—comfortable with the results you’ll get with AI,” he said. Tools like Gemini and ChatGPT “allow the workforce to interact with AI, see the results, trust the results, and get comfortable.”

“That’s required, because as you move to a more agentic AI, those agents are working 24/7 behind the scenes, and so there has to be a level—a cultural level—of trust in those outcomes,” he said. “Now, we’re shifting to what I would call strategic implementation in terms of those agentic agents to get us better results.”

Roberts said introducing digital employees will require new management strategies. Humans will be working alongside—and often overseeing—digital agents, creating an assortment of new management challenges.

“I think we like to call it, ‘How are we managing our digital employees?” Roberts posited. “Because that’s what they really are, and how do you manage them in conjunction with your human employees?” How do you train a workforce to where everyone is essentially working as a supervisor because of the employment of AI with humans? Do you terminate an agent because of the performance?”

“So, it's a very complex universe, from an employee-cultural perspective, in terms of how you deploy and manage those agents,” Roberts said.

It might sound like science fiction, but the rapid evolution of AI—and DLA’s gradual adoption of it—creates questions around governance, rules, security, and the performance of AI agents and even human employees.

Many of these questions fall to DLA’s AI Center of Excellence, founded in 2024 to ensure the safe, secure, and responsible integration of AI across the agency. The center oversees DLA’s use of AI and performs other functions, like ensuring agents are being trained properly. DLA has implemented a zero-trust cybersecurity framework that Roberts called “foundational” to high-level agentic work.

Currently, the agency is establishing “persona-based access” that will dictate AI agents’ account permissions based on their job descriptions. For example, a procurement specialist at DLA may require access to certain data domains, like procurement and financial data, so a digital agent performing the same procurement specialist duties should have permission to access only those same data domains.

“These AI agents should have a persona, just like a person,” Roberts said.

DLA is also working to clean up its datasets.

“How do we create a single source of truth for DLA and our stakeholders in terms of our data, making sure it’s a gold standard, meaning we remove the duplicity, errors, etc…so the data is in a usable state, not just for analytics and AI, but as we look toward future system sustainability,” Roberts said.

‘AI is the new gunpowder’

DLA accelerated its use of AI during the 32-month tenure of Director Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, who will retire on Oct. 2. Simerly will be replaced by a familiar face at DLA, Air Force Lt. Gen. David Sanford, who spent the past two years as director of Logistics Operations and commander, Joint Regional Combat Support.

Speaking at the Sept. 9 event, Simerly said technology allows DLA to be predictive and proactive in solving problems, and he views AI as the key ingredient to solving them at scale.

“I believe when it comes to military logistics, AI is the new gunpowder,” he told reporters. “And we don’t think it’s just an explosive, destructive capability, although we know it can be. It can also be very productive.”

Simerly’s philosophy at DLA has been “to move at pace with the commercial world,” adopting and adapting capabilities rapidly, establish the proper network and infrastructure to access and manage agency data suitably, “and then allow interoperability between the services and with industry to allow us to truly operate end-to-end supply chain operations that are optimized.”

Simerly said changes at his agency were spurred by the war in Ukraine, which expanded in February 2022, and even during the seven-month-old war on Iran launched by President Donald Trump.

“I think probably the greatest change that I've seen in the agency is a willingness to change within the agency. This recognition that we have to respond to the changing environment, that we have to respond to the changing technology, and that we've got a responsibility to change as rapidly as we can, so we can continue to be relevant and offer support to the warfighters,” he said. “I would say that we were built to change from the very beginning. We've had to accelerate that change cycle in the last few years, and I've seen the willingness and the readiness of the agency to take that challenge on and to operationalize our transformation planning into tangible outcomes.”

The contested logistics in Ukraine captured his attention because they were so different from previous U.S. military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where DLA delivered food and fuel to forward operating bases “really without great resistance.”

“That would never take place in a place like Ukraine, in the way that they’re operating, the way they have to disperse, the way that the lines of communications are contested and where everything has to be done in a certain way,” Simerly said.

“What sort of sparked some of the transformation energy was very much awareness of what was taking place and being illustrated on that battlefield in Ukraine about the things that we no longer could rely upon, like the air and domain dominance that we possessed in previous fights that is now no longer valid or in place.”

Simerly said similar conditions pertain in the U.S. war on Iran.

“There's no question that we're learning the same lessons now in Operation Epic Fury with Iran and their ability to target a broader array of things with precision that puts much more at risk, and you know certainly we're learning a lot about the execution of alternate supply chains, alternate supply means, and the necessity of being able to operate with precision,” he said.

Simerly expressed pride in his DLA team.

“I think about throughout my career the winning teams that I've been privileged to be part of, and that's what I'm proud of here,” he said. “The winning team that I'm part of now, that will continue on the mission after I leave.”

NEXT STORY: AI-powered biowarfare is coming; the Army lays plans to ‘fight through’ it

2024年，美国陆军中将、国防后勤局局长马克·西默利访问了位于弗吉尼亚州里士满的国防供应中心，并与官兵们交流。（美国国防部/尼古拉斯·皮尔奇摄）

CIO表示，随着作战支援机构大力推进人工智能工具的应用，近200个智能AI机器人已经可以自主运行。

国防后勤局正在试点“数字员工”：即能够自主工作的AI代理，该机构的首席信息官表示。

“这对每个人来说都是一个新的领域，”阿达里尔·罗伯茨在9月9日于弗吉尼亚州亚历山大市举行的国防后勤局工业碰撞日新闻发布会上说。

此举建立在国防后勤局（DLA）日益增长的机器人流程自动化（RPA）及其约25000名军人和文职人员可使用的生成式人工智能工具的基础上。预计到2025年，机器人将为DLA节省约30万工时——其中一些机器人全天候工作，帮助这家作战支援机构将从食品、燃料到医疗用品和衣物等各种物资运送到所需地点。

罗伯茨说：“我们目前大约有185到190个机器人正在运行。其中大约90%到95%都是无人值守的机器人。所以，我们已经成功实现了这些机器人的无人值守运行。现在，我们正在从机器人转向‘如何让智能机器人根据我们的数据在整个部门内协同工作？’所以，我们目前还处于探索的初期阶段。”

ChatGPT 和 Grok 的军用版本最近也加入了 Gemini 平台，该平台为国防工作人员提供生成式人工智能工具，用于处理敏感但非机密信息。罗伯茨表示，国防后勤局 (DLA) 通过“GenAI 101 培训”帮助其工作人员快速掌握这些工具的使用方法。

他表示：“我认为生成式人工智能的概念在于，从运营模式的角度出发，让员工和机构能够接受人工智能带来的结果。” 像 Gemini 和 ChatGPT 这样的工具“让员工能够与人工智能互动，看到结果，信任结果，并最终适应人工智能。”

“这是必要的，因为随着人工智能向更具自主性的方向发展，这些智能体会在幕后全天候工作，因此必须对这些结果建立一定程度的信任——一种文化层面的信任，”他说道。“现在，我们正在转向我所谓的战略性实施，即利用这些自主智能体来获得更好的结果。”

罗伯茨表示，引入数字化员工需要新的管理策略。人类将与数字化代理并肩工作，并且常常要监督他们，这将带来一系列新的管理挑战。

罗伯茨提出：“我想我们应该称之为‘如何管理我们的数字化员工’。因为它们本质上就是数字化员工，那么如何将它们与人类员工协同管理呢？” 如何培训员工队伍，使每个人都能因为人工智能与人类的结合而承担起管理者的角色？是否应该因为人工智能的表现而解雇某个人工智能员工？

“所以，从员工文化的角度来看，如何部署和管理这些员工，这是一个非常复杂的领域，”罗伯茨说。

这听起来像是科幻小说，但人工智能的快速发展——以及国防后勤局逐步采用人工智能——引发了关于治理、规则、安全以及人工智能代理甚至人类员工的绩效等问题。

许多此类问题都落在了国防后勤局（DLA）人工智能卓越中心的肩上。该中心成立于2024年，旨在确保人工智能在整个机构内安全、可靠且负责任地整合应用。中心负责监督DLA对人工智能的使用，并履行其他职能，例如确保特工接受适当的培训。DLA已实施了一套零信任网络安全框架，罗伯茨称之为高级特工工作的“基础”。

目前，该机构正在建立“基于角色的访问权限”机制，根据人工智能代理的岗位职责来决定其账户权限。例如，国防后勤局 (DLA) 的采购专员可能需要访问某些数据域，例如采购和财务数据，因此，执行相同采购专员职责的数字代理应该只被允许访问这些数据域。

罗伯茨说：“这些人工智能代理应该像人一样拥有个性。”

DLA也在努力清理其数据集。

罗伯茨说：“我们如何为国防后勤局和我们的利益相关者创建一个单一的真实数据源，确保它是黄金标准，这意味着我们要消除重复数据、错误等……使数据处于可用状态，不仅用于分析和人工智能，而且在我们展望未来系统可持续性时也是如此。”

“人工智能是新的火药”

在即将于 10 月 2 日退休的马克·西默利中将担任局长期间（任期 32 个月），国防后勤局加快了人工智能的应用。接替西默利的是国防后勤局的一位老熟人——空军中将大卫·桑福德，他在过去两年担任后勤行动局局长兼联合区域作战支援司令。

Simerly 在 9 月 9 日的活动上发言时表示，技术使 DLA 能够预测和主动解决问题，他认为人工智能是大规模解决这些问题的关键要素。

“我认为，就军事后勤而言，人工智能就是新的火药，”他告诉记者。“我们并不认为它仅仅是一种爆炸​​性的破坏能力，尽管我们知道它有这种能力。它也可以非常高效。”

Simerly 在 DLA 的理念是“与商业世界同步发展”，快速采用和调整各项能力，建立适当的网络和基础设施，以便适当地访问和管理机构数据，“然后实现各部门之间以及与行业的互操作性，使我们能够真正开展优化的端到端供应链运营”。

Simerly表示，他所在机构的变革是由乌克兰战争引发的，这场战争在2022年2月扩大，甚至在唐纳德·特朗普总统发动的持续七个月的对伊朗战争期间也引发了变革。

“我认为我所见到的机构最大的变化，或许就是机构内部变革的意愿。这种意愿让我们认识到，我们必须应对不断变化的环境，必须应对不断变化的技术，我们有责任尽快做出改变，这样才能保持竞争力，继续为作战人员提供支持，”他说道。“我认为，我们从一开始就被设计成一个变革型机构。过去几年，我们不得不加快变革的步伐，而我也看到了机构迎接挑战的意愿和准备，以及将转型计划转化为切实成果的决心。”

乌克兰的后勤争议引起了他的注意，因为这与美国之前在伊拉克和阿富汗的军事冲突截然不同，在伊拉克和阿富汗，国防后勤局向前沿作战基地运送食品和燃料“几乎没有遇到什么阻力”。

“在像乌克兰这样的地方，这种情况永远不会发生，因为他们的运作方式、他们不得不分散行动的方式、通信线路受到争夺的方式，以及所有事情都必须以某种特定方式进行的方式，”西默利说。

“真正激发这种变革能量的，是对正在发生的事情的深刻认识，以及在乌克兰战场上所展现的，我们不再能依赖的东西，比如我们在以前的战斗中拥有的空中和领土优势，现在已经不再有效或存在了。”

西默利表示，类似的情况也适用于美国对伊朗的战争。

“毫无疑问，我们现在在‘史诗狂怒行动’中从伊朗身上吸取了同样的教训，他们能够精确地打击更广泛的目标，这带来了更大的风险。当然，我们也从中学习了很多关于执行替代供应链、替代供应方式以及精确行动必要性的知识，”他说。

Simerly 对他的 DLA 团队表示自豪。

“我回顾我的职业生涯，曾有幸成为众多胜利团队的一员，这让我感到无比自豪，”他说。“我现在所在的这支胜利团队，在我离开之后，也将继续朝着既定目标前进。”

下一篇报道：人工智能驱动的生物战即将到来；陆军制定应对计划。