Artificial intelligence in the Norwegian defence sector – maturity assessment of its support functions

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most important technologies for digital transformation. Scholars, experts, and policymakers also anticipate that AI will change – or even revolutionise – defence and security affairs. Military organisations have already started to adopt AI. However, AI has so far received scant attention as a tool to improve efficiency in the Norwegian defence sector. This is about to change. The Norwegian Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently published a defence AI strategy, outlining ambitious goals for AI in the years ahead. The strategy also focuses on support functions, where many existing civilian AI applications can be relevant for defence organ-isations. Yet, previous digitalisation undertakings in the Norwegian defence sector have revealed that the support functions have a low digital maturity and struggle to realise effects from initiatives. Hence, to achieve the strategic objectives and ambitions for AI in the support functions, it is important to build knowledge on today’s AI maturity and identify areas of improvement. This would increase the prospects for a successful implementation of AI in the support functions over the coming years. The purpose of our report is to enhance the ability of the Norwegian defence sector to improve the efficiency of its support functions by using AI. We do so by evaluating the AI maturity of the support functions and providing recommendations for improvements. Our report is written with the strategic leadership in the MoD and the Norwegian Armed Forces in mind. However, our framework, findings, and recommendations may also be relevant for other organisations and stakeholders that seek to increase their ability to adopt AI. We have developed a framework for assessing AI maturity that consists of six dimensions: ‘Strategy and leadership’, ‘Organisational set-up and processes’, ‘Technology and infrastructure’, ‘Data’, ‘Execution’, and ‘Knowledge, skills, and culture’. These dimensions are derived from existing AI maturity models and other literature on challenges and success factors for AI. The data used to evaluate today’s AI maturity comprises interviews with key stakeholders, conversations with colleagues at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), and analysis of key documents. By combining the analytical framework with the data from our sources, we have arrived at a description of the current AI maturity in the support functions. The last years have seen multiple positive changes in the support functions that contribute to increasing the possibilities of using AI. However, our report also identifies many remaining challenges and bottlenecks that risk impeding AI initiatives – especially at scale – from succeeding. In sum, we conclude that the AI maturity is currently low. Based on our findings, we identify four important areas of improvement: (1) strategic governance and leadership, (2) organisational set-up and skills, (3) experimentation and innovation, and (4) technological support systems and data. Within each area, we propose specific recommendations that the strategic leadership in the MoD and Armed Forces can seek to implement to enhance the AI maturity in the support functions. In parallel with efforts aimed at strengthening each area of improvement, we recommend that the support functions quickly accelerate their experimentation with AI to gain knowledge and experience.