The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found uneven safeguards in 10 selected Pentagon AI cases as the military seeks faster adoption, including four where respondents said no requirements matched the department’s Responsible AI tenets.
GAO surveyed 10 Department of Defense components, asking each about one selected AI use case. Three respondents said they did not know whether a system’s outputs would receive continuous monitoring after deployment; seven said they would. Six said their offices had identified operational risks, while four said they had not. The survey ran from June 12 to Aug. 14, 2025, and GAO said case summaries reflected information current through March 2026.
GAO found that every component had taken at least one step to apply the governance tenet in its selected case. Nine had established, or begun establishing, oversight bodies in guidance, and seven had taken steps to set up oversight activities.
The Responsible AI Working Council went without a meeting between late 2024 and August 2025. It later reconvened, but GAO said no charter clarified its responsibilities or how often it should meet. Officials at four components said collaboration could have helped with challenges they encountered during the pause. GAO linked the hiatus to competing work, including a generative AI toolkit and a government-wide AI risk-management effort.
GAO cautioned that the 10-case sample cannot show how widely its findings apply across the department. Office of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) officials said 378 AI cases had been reported using available data in February 2026. They were seeking additional information and said the actual total was probably higher.
A May 2021 deputy secretary memo set six foundational Responsible AI tenets, followed by a 2022 implementation pathway with 64 lines of work. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s January 2026 strategy called for an “AI-first” military force and directed CDAO to ensure existing department AI policy guidance aligned with its directives.
The Responsible AI Division had filled three of its 10 authorized positions by February 2026. CDAO officials told GAO they considered it unlikely the division would fill vacancies or increase staffing while it was being restructured. CDAO records listed 29 of the pathway’s 64 effort lines as unfinished in April 2026.
GAO recommended that the department establish a council charter and address the division’s workforce needs. The department concurred by email, and GAO lists both recommendations as open. GAO said it will update their status after confirming the department’s actions; it set no completion date.
