AI Speed With Human-in-the-Loop Assurance

Original broadcast 11/19/25

Presented by Tungsten Automation & Carahsoft

Modern defense operations are driven by data. Every mission, every platform, and every decision is increasingly shaped by the speed, volume, and complexity of information flowing across the battlespace. Yet information alone is not decisive. What matters is how quickly it can be ingested, interpreted, and acted upon. At TechNet Indo-Pacific, John Beglan, Director of Public Sector at Tungsten Automation, explained how the company’s flagship platform, TotalAgility, is transforming this challenge through artificial intelligence, powerful automation, and—in his words—an unwavering commitment to keeping “the human in the loop.”

TotalAgility is built on decades of innovation. Tungsten Automation, formerly known as Kofax, has been at the forefront of intelligent document processing, automation, and workflow orchestration for more than 40 years. The company holds over 150 patents in AI alone. Its technology has evolved in parallel with government missions, supporting agencies as they modernized paper-heavy processes, digitized records, and adopted advanced automation. Today, TotalAgility stands as a fully integrated intelligent automation platform capable of supporting missions across the Department of Defense and the broader federal enterprise.

A major milestone in that evolution is TotalAgility’s FedRAMP authorization, operating in a Department of Defense cloud instance within Microsoft Azure. This makes the platform accessible to organizations with demanding security requirements—those needing workflows, AI-driven decision support, and advanced automation in environments where speed and validated security are non-negotiable.

Beglan emphasizes that the core value of TotalAgility lies in its ability to ingest enormous volumes of data from diverse sources. Satellite imagery, intelligence reports, logistics updates, sensor feeds, field communications—these streams often arrive in different formats, at different times, and from different systems. Warfighters and mission owners cannot afford delays in making sense of this information. TotalAgility brings everything together, normalizing and interpreting it to give commanders real-time situational awareness.

This capability is especially critical in the Indo-Pacific, a region defined by distance, contested environments, and operational unpredictability. Whether onboard maritime vessels, inside joint operations centers, or at forward operating bases, operators must make decisions quickly and accurately. They need systems that can analyze data at machine speed—but that still allow humans to validate conclusions before taking action.

That is precisely where Beglan draws a bright line: AI is not a replacement for human judgment. It is an accelerator, an enhancer, and a force multiplier, but it must always be paired with oversight. He describes the concept of human thresholds—guardrails applied within TotalAgility that ensure certain types of decisions cannot be made without human intervention. This prevents models from acting on potentially incorrect or manipulated data.

Beglan acknowledges emerging AI threat vectors, including AI poisoning, in which adversaries intentionally inject misleading or corrupted data into training sets or operational environments. Without appropriate safeguards, such manipulation could compromise mission outcomes. Ensuring authenticity and integrity of data, while allowing humans to verify and approve key actions, is central to Tungsten Automation’s design philosophy.

That philosophy becomes even more important as the nature of government missions evolves. Agencies across defense, intelligence, and civilian sectors face mounting pressure to streamline operations, shorten decision cycles, and modernize legacy systems. They must do this while maintaining compliance with security frameworks, preserving auditable trails, and ensuring fairness and transparency in automated decisions.

TotalAgility supports these requirements by enabling intelligent capture, workflow automation, policy-based decisioning, and advanced analytics—all in a single platform. This “full-spectrum AI” approach brings generative AI, agentic AI, predictive analytics, and business rules together to support complex mission workflows. Instead of stitching together multiple tools, agencies can deploy a unified solution that scales across use cases and environments.

For defense organizations, this unification translates directly to mission speed. The platform enables rapid generation of insights, faster coordination among units, and more accurate situational assessments. Commanders no longer need to wait hours—or days—for analysts to reconcile data from scattered systems. Instead, they receive timely, structured, validated intelligence that supports rapid decision-making in high-stakes conditions.

Yet even with speed as a priority, Beglan reiterates that trust is equally important. Trust in the data. Trust in the model. Trust in the workflow. Trust that the system will support—not replace—the expertise of the warfighter. The Indo-Pacific’s complex security environment requires not only advanced technology but resilient, transparent, and human-centered solutions that reinforce mission confidence.

As Tungsten Automation celebrates its 40th anniversary, the company views TotalAgility not as a culmination, but as a foundation for the next era of mission automation. Government agencies are entering a period where AI will be deeply integrated into daily operations—from strategic planning to tactical execution. The technology is ready, but adoption must be methodical, ethical, and structured around human expertise.

For Beglan, the way forward is clear. The future of automation is neither purely autonomous nor strictly manual. It is a thoughtful hybrid—one where AI handles the scale and speed of modern data, and humans provide oversight, judgment, and accountability. In that partnership, he sees the opportunity to deliver the greatest impact: faster decisions, stronger missions, and safer outcomes.

Key Takeaways

• AI-driven automation accelerates situational awareness by processing vast mission data at machine speed.

• Human-in-the-loop guardrails ensure trust, prevent AI poisoning, and maintain decision integrity.

• TotalAgility’s unified automation platform supports secure, scalable, DoD-ready mission workflows.