Jane Edwards
Rob Bocek, chief revenue officer at Virtualitics, said during the Federal Tech Podcast that the company has been focused on applying its artificial intelligence capability to help strengthen readiness across the Department of Defense.
“When we say readiness, we’re talking specifically about asset availability, hardware, weapon systems, you know, ships, aircraft, tactical vehicles, things of that nature. Also, the readiness of personnel,” Bocek told podcast host John Gilroy.
“Material storage and and planning optimization is another key area. And even understanding, frankly, from a threat vulnerability, from a cyber standpoint, how that can impact or degrade overall readiness. So Virtualitics has really been focused on helping to close those gaps across the readiness landscape,” he added.
Virtualitics’ Holistic Approach to Using AI
During the podcast, the Virtualitics executive highlighted the significance of taking a holistic approach when it comes to applying AI capabilities.
“Our approach is very different than most. We are really applying a holistic approach to not just understanding the problem set, but accessing these, I’ll say, exquisite stovepipes of data. It’s not enough to understand, that something may fail or degrade at some point in time in the future. That’s not enough,” Bocek said.
“So it really is a holistic approach using AI to synthesize all the options and really provide recommended courses of action, kind of triaged courses of action that then commanders can use as a basis to make and formulate their decision from. We don’t replace the human in the loop clearly, but we provide optionality,” he added.
Democratizing AI
In this conversation with Gilroy, the CRO discussed Virtualitics’ efforts to listen to and gain feedback from end users as well as the importance of democratizing AI.
“We’re democratizing AI across the force. Maybe one way to look at it is we’re almost retooling, the force depending on what that mission vertical is,” Bocek told Gilroy.
“Everybody should have access to these tools, not just data scientists. And that’s important because that goes into the design of these capabilities. They have to be designed and built in a fashion so it’s approachable and it’s explainable so everyone can use it and benefit,” he added.
