The a16z Show Emil Michael: Iran, Anthropic and the Future of AI at the Pentagon
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Mar 13, 2026 
Emil Michael, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and Acting Director of the Defense Innovation Unit, explains how he cut 14 tech priorities to six and made applied AI the top focus. He describes AI use cases across enterprise, intelligence, and warfighting. He also exposes vendor-lock risks from past commercial AI contracts and how procurement must speed up and simplify.
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Applied AI Became The Department's Top Priority
- Emil Michael prioritized applied AI as the top tech focus after cutting 14 military priorities down to six to drive measurable impact.
- Within 90 days he raised AI adoption from 80,000 to 1.2 million of 3 million DoD personnel, showing rapid internal scaling is possible.
Vendor Lock Threatened Combat Operations
- Existing commercial AI contracts contained restrictions that could disable capabilities mid-operation, creating vendor-lock risks for critical military missions.
- Emil Michael discovered AI models baked into sensitive commands with terms that might let a vendor shut services off during operations, forcing urgent remediation.
Vendor Asked If Its Software Was Used In A Raid
- After the Maduro raid a vendor asked if its software had been used, which alarmed Emil Michael because companies questioning operational use signals misaligned controls.
- He likened it to a stranger claiming to have seen your child, illustrating how disturbing vendor uncertainty about military usage can be.