Boots-n-Bytes

LTC David Paddock and CW4 James Yantis look ahead at where AI is taking the Army, covering the two key trends shaping the force: the rise of agentic AI and the push to get AI capability down to the tactical edge. They discuss what it will take to make both work operationally and explore the emerging roles of operational data teams and the 49B MOS. The conversation tackles how commanders must think...

LTC David Paddock sits down with CW3 Victor Fernandez, a cyber defense expert and information system security manager at AI2C, to tackle the risks and vulnerabilities that come with integrating AI into Army organizations. They cover why most AI security concerns aren't new, how to use Army-authorized platforms safely, the dangers of hallucinations and prompt engineering pitfalls, and the key frame...

In Episode 8 of the Army AI Integration Center podcast, host Lieutenant Colonel David Paddock sits down with Captain Natalie McGrath to explore how AI can become a practical, tangible tool for soldiers and NCOs at the small unit level. They discuss AI-powered personalized training, digital twins to improve simulations and fault diagnosis, and how large language models can streamline the administra...

Working as a Team: In this episode, host Lt. Col. David Paddock sits down with Capt. Brian Curtin, an Apache pilot, Carnegie Mellon AI scholar, and current AI2C researcher to explore what it really means to put a human in the loop. They discuss why AI systems need human judgment for ethical grounding and contextual reasoning, how military leaders can build trust in AI tools without falling into au...

In Episode 4, Lt. Col. Paddock is joined by Command Sergeant Major Harold Sampson, a 26-year intelligence professional, to tackle the uncomfortable truth behind a striking statistic: 95% of corporate AI projects fail to deliver measurable value. The episode introduces a powerful mental model: AI transformation is 10% technology, 20% data, and 70% change management, and most organizations get it ba...

What does it take to build a functioning AI team in the Army? Lt. Col. David Paddock talks with Capt. Bryce Wilkins, an AI Scholar Program graduate and ORSA at the Center for Army Analysis, about the key roles on an Army AI team, the unique challenges of working with data in classified environments, and what separates military AI work from the civilian sector. They also dig into talent retention a...

In this episode of the Army AI Integration Center Podcast, Lt. Col. David Paddock sits down with CW3 James Hamilton to unpack what it really takes to prepare a military organization for AI adoption. They dive deep into data hygiene and governance and explore how legacy Army structures need to adapt their data pipelines to support modern machine learning workflows. The conversation also tackles the...

Episode 3 brings Capt. Adam Patula onto the podcast to answer the question every Army leader needs to be asking: why does AI matter right now, and what changes if we don't act? The answer centers on speed. The modern battlefield is already operating at machine speed, and adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are actively developing AI-enabled capabilities across targeting, cyber, a...

In Episode 2, Lt. Col. David Paddock is joined by Capt. Adam Knapp to pull back the curtain on how large language models function; from the raw data they're trained on, to the reward mechanisms that shape their behavior, to the inference stage where they generate responses. The episode breaks down four key capabilities that make modern LLMs so powerful: system prompts, chain-of-thought reasoning,...

In the debut episode of the Army AI Integration Center Podcast, Lt. Col. David Paddock sits down with Capt. Thomas Canchola to cut through the hype and establish a clear foundation for what artificial intelligence actually is. At its core, AI is statistics performed at scale: pattern recognition applied to massive datasets, not magic, and certainly not science fiction. The conversation covers the...