How Primer Is Giving the DOD the AI Tools It Needs

WashingtonExec profiled Primer in this story about government agencies turning to AI to make sense of massive volumes of data to support mission objectives.

Working with government agencies to detect bots spreading misinformation in Ukraine is just the beginning. Primer’s work with government agencies is giving the Department of Defense the real-time situational awareness it needs, according to a new article in WashingtonExec, written by Adam Stone.

Mark Brunner, president of Primer Federal and a former Senior U.S. Senate Advisor and U.S. Navy Commander, knows firsthand the need for data to inform action. He mentioned how the Pentagon and its departments are “dedicating $200 million in just this fiscal year alone for our major military commands to use AI more efficiently,” according to the article.

Read: A New Era of Warfare: How AI Unlocks Intelligence, by Primer CEO Sean Gourley

Brunner has worked in the military, overseas in a diplomatic post, on Capitol Hill, and also as a strategic consultant. With this experience, Brunner explained how manual data analysis performed by humans is very limited and can’t make sense of the urgent real-time situation awareness required in today’s information wars.

The article describes how “Primer addresses the need through a multipillar strategy for AI-powered situational awareness and decision support that encompasses strategic analysis, threat detection, information operations detection and countermeasures (e.g., mis/disinformation campaigns), audio extraction and summarization, and training and deploying custom AI models.”

“For most of us who have worked in and around government, the ability to ingest and process and synthesize that volume of data is really incredible.” 

Mark Brunner, Primer Federal President, quoted in WashingtonExec

Since working with government agencies comes with its own hurdles, the article also describes what’s required for companies like Primer to break into the complex and often cumbersome government acquisition system. The article describes how in government, there are hurdles around requirements like Authority To Operate, and Primer is working on its Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program authorization to overcome those.” 

The article also discusses how Primer partners with contractors already working within the government to embed its analytics and AI tools. “Adding that capability into an RFP can be a tremendously compelling proposition,” Brunner said. 

Primer’s work with the U.S. Air Force and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) brings the best Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to operators who make mission-critical decisions. Recently, Primer was selected for the U.S. Air Force Advanced Battlefield Management (ABMS) IDIQ contract.

Brunner explains how large volumes of datamost of it unstructuredis what lies at the center of the problem for almost all government agencies. Primer’s machine learning models can work with a number of agency typesincluding the Army, the VA, or the Treasury, Brunner says in the article. 

“You can’t just hire more humans,” Brunner continues in the article. “At Primer, we use machines to do the hard, tedious work that is physically impossible for humans to do.”

Learn more about Primer Command for real-time situational awareness.