Original Broadcast Date: 10/18/2026
Sponsored by Accenture Federal Services
The Navy is accelerating its efforts to use artificial intelligence and data across the fleet, but Barry Tanner, Chief Information Officer at the Navy, says the real measure of success is how quickly the service can turn information into action.
During an interview on Fed Gov Today, Tanner discusses the Navy's strategy to weaponize data and artificial intelligence, a plan focused on helping sailors and Marines learn, adapt and respond faster than their adversaries.
For Tanner, the biggest change emerging technologies bring to military operations is speed.
"The key with this new strategy is the ability to adapt and learn faster than our adversaries," Tanner says.
He explains that what the administration and Pentagon refer to as superintelligence gives the military access to capabilities it previously did not have. Those capabilities create opportunities for military operations, but they also introduce new threats.
One of the most pressing challenges involves cybersecurity.
Tanner says the amount of time it takes an adversary to turn a potential cyber vulnerability into an exploit is shrinking significantly. That puts pressure on the Navy to understand its own security posture, identify weaknesses and address them before an adversary can take advantage.
At the same time, the Navy can use these emerging capabilities to identify opportunities of its own.
Tanner points to the war in Ukraine as an example of how quickly military operations are changing.
He says the time between introducing a new battlefield tactic and seeing an opposing force respond can now be measured in hours or less.
That rapid cycle is being driven by technologies that help military forces observe battlefield conditions, understand what is happening and adjust their plans.
For the Navy, the goal is to build similar responsiveness into its operations.
While AI receives significant attention, Tanner says data is the most important element of the Navy's approach.
"The data is as important, and actually the most important thing, because data is what drives the results," Tanner says.
That means the Navy must ensure its information is accessible, usable and trusted before advanced technologies can deliver meaningful results.
One important part of that effort is the War Data Platform, formerly known as Advana.
Tanner describes the platform as a universal data lake that allows the department to bring information together and use emerging technologies to generate operational effects.
The strategy introduces a measure Tanner calls "mean time to effect."
It focuses on the time between receiving information and doing something useful with it.
By tracking when data becomes available and when it contributes to an operational effect, the Navy can identify opportunities to accelerate that
But making information useful requires more than building a data platform.
Tanner says the Navy must also modernize the digital infrastructure supporting its operations, particularly aboard ships.
The service is already working to improve those capabilities, but the new strategy creates additional pressure to accelerate modernization.
For newly constructed ships, Tanner says digital infrastructure needs to be incorporated from the beginning.
For the existing fleet, the challenge is retrofitting ships with the technology required to support modern operations.
He acknowledges that delivering those improvements across a fleet as large as the Navy's is a daunting task.
Another major part of the Navy's approach involves putting technology directly into the hands of warfighters.
Tanner points to the Rim of the Pacific exercise, commonly known as RIMPAC, as an example of how the service is testing emerging capabilities.
During the exercise, sailors and Marines receive access to new technologies and have opportunities to experiment with them.
In some cases, those experiments are deliberately unscripted.
Rather than prescribing every use, the Navy allows personnel to explore the technology, challenge assumptions and discover unexpected applications.
Tanner says the results are promising.
The exercise helps validate some of the Navy's expectations while also revealing where its assumptions need adjustment.
Those findings inform the next generation of capabilities.
But Tanner emphasizes that successful experimentation requires careful exercise design.
The Navy needs to observe not only how a particular technology performs, but also the second- and third-order effects of using it.
That information helps leaders determine whether an unexpected result reflects a problem with technology, policy or tactics.
The lessons can then move into warfare development centers and training programs.
For Tanner, success is not simply delivering more technology to the fleet.
It is seeing sailors and Marines use new capabilities effectively and quickly.
He says the Navy can measure progress by observing how personnel change their tactics and operations as new tools become available.
If the service can introduce a capability and see warfighters put it to use almost immediately, that is an indication the strategy is moving in the right direction.
The goal is to shorten the distance between learning something and acting on it.
As the Navy continues modernizing its infrastructure, improving data access and expanding experimentation, Tanner says that ability to move faster remains the central measure of progress.