Shift 2: The Battlefield Imperative
What began in 2022 as a geopolitical crisis became, by 2025, a revolution in military affairs and the world's most demanding real-world proving ground for autonomous systems, AI-enabled targeting, and software-defined warfare. Technologies are forced to evolve under continuous combat pressure in ways no test range or acquisition office could replicate. The lessons from that conflict are now driving doctrine, budget decisions, and company strategies across the U.S. defense innovation ecosystem.
What Ukraine Proved
The defining operational shift is economic as much as technological. Ukraine's use of low-cost, attritable autonomous systems demonstrated that a modestly resourced force could achieve disproportionate battlefield effect, not through exquisite platforms, but through mass, development cycle iteration speed, and software. The lesson that software integration and information management can serve as primary drivers of operational tempo in modern high-intensity conflict has landed hard in Washington.
From Replicator to DAWG
The U.S. government's response has accelerated significantly. The Replicator initiative, launched in 2023 to field thousands of attritable autonomous systems, delivered "hundreds" of systems by its August 2025 target which was short of its goal, and an honest indicator of how hard production and integration at scale actually is. Replicator 2, focused on counter-drone capabilities, saw its resources consolidated into the newly created Joint Interagency Task Force 401 in August 2025.
The Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) was established in late 2025 with a mandate explicitly designed to go beyond Replicator's prototype model. The FY2027 budget proposed $54.6 billion for DAWG, a 243-fold increase over its $225 million FY2026 baseline, demonstrating a structural commitment to autonomous warfare as a permanent feature of U.S. defense investment.
The DoW AI Strategy
In January 2026, the Department of War released its AI Strategy, mandating Modular Open Systems Architecture across all AI-enabled acquisitions, directing each Service Chief and Combatant Commander to designate an AI Integration Lead within 30 days, and requiring quarterly progress reports to senior leadership. The strategy makes clear that AI and autonomy are organizing principles for how the Department intends to fight.
SVDG's Read
The battlefield has done what years of policy advocacy could not: it made the adoption argument undeniable. The DoW is now structurally committed to autonomous warfare at a scale and speed that would have seemed implausible three years ago. The question now is whether the industrial base can produce at the volume the DAWG model demands, and whether non-traditional companies are currently positioned to meet compliance requirements that come with entry into that pipeline.
One honest gap in the current picture is that the U.S. has not yet demonstrated the same tactical integration of autonomous systems and iterative commercial technology in its own areas of responsibility that Ukraine has proven on the battlefield. The intervention in Venezuela and operations against Iran showed that the tools exist and are being used — but the systematic, doctrine-level integration of low-cost attritable systems, AI-enabled targeting, and rapid iteration cycles that defines Ukraine's approach has not yet been replicated at scale in U.S. AORs. The ecosystem needs a publicly acknowledged operational success that demonstrates the U.S. military wielding this technology the way Ukraine has. Public success begets more public success. It is also the most powerful signal available to keep institutional investors engaged in a market where exit timelines are long and patience is finite.
Indicators to Watch
DAWG procurement moving from budget proposal to awarded contracts at scale — particularly to non-traditional vendors
NatSec100 autonomy and AI companies winning production-level, not prototype-level, awards
Replicator's honest lessons, on production constraints, integration challenges, and fielding gaps, informing the DAWG model rather than being papered over
U.S. drone production capacity growing to match stated procurement ambitions; the U.S. currently produces roughly 100,000 drones annually against a Drone Dominance target of 200,000+ autonomous systems by 2027
Evidence that battlefield lessons are actively informing U.S. requirements, not just generating conference panels
Our warfighters require capabilities that legacy planning systems were never designed to support - and the government’s demand for non-traditional technology providers must accelerate to deliver. Onebrief’s growth is aligned to the urgency across the Department of War to equip commands with software that operates at the speed, scale, and complexity of today’s operational environment.
For decades, military planning has relied on workflows built around slides, email chains, and static documents. Those systems created fragmented planning processes at a time when commanders now need continuously shared understanding, synchronized decision-making, and the ability to adapt in real time across distributed operations. Now, replacing that workflow is critical.
Onebrief is proud to deliver the infrastructure to make military commands superhuman. We address this through three core capabilities. First is an AI agent at the heart of Onebrief, designed to help staffs advance planning and decision-making. Second is our core platform, a real-time collaborative planning environment that keeps commands aligned as conditions change. Third is AtomEngine, the planet-scale simulation and wargaming engine, that enables organizations to test assumptions, model scenarios, and prepare faster than ever before.
The future fight will favor organizations that can understand, decide, and adapt faster than their adversaries. The demand we’re seeing across the U.S. government reflects that reality.
— Grant Demaree, CEO OneBrief
