Marines use generative AI tech during long deployment to the Pacific

One of the Marine Corps’ elite crisis response units used generative artificial intelligence tools during a lengthy deployment to the Pacific last year, amid a broader push by the service to onboard the cutting-edge technology.

GenAI models can leverage input data to create new content such as images, videos, audio and text.

“These systems have the potential to revolutionize mission processes by enhancing operational speed and efficiency, improving decisionmaking accuracy, reducing human involvement in redundant, tedious, and dangerous tasks, and enabling real-time adaptability to dynamic operational environments. This technological advancement can significantly boost mission effectiveness and operational readiness, providing a strategic edge in modern warfare. Commanders and senior leaders should advocate for the use of GenAI tools for their appropriate use cases,” Lt. Gen. Melvin “Jerry” Carter, deputy commandant for information, wrote in new guidance that he issued in December.

Marines with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit — which deployed to the Pacific with the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group for much of 2024 and participated in a variety of exercises and other activities in the region — are already taking advantage of these types of capabilities.

“We used a generative AI model to be able to assist with some staff functions they’re offering [for] both our unclassified and classified systems on using this. And some of the things that they would do is we get a lot of information, situation reports, different things like that, [and] we were making summaries using the Gen AI to help facilitate that,” Maj. Victor Castro, a communications officer with 15th MEU, told DefenseScoop during a call with reporters on Tuesday to discuss the deployment.

Capt. Kristin Enzenauer, a space operations officer, noted that an AI tool from Vannevar Labs can sift through media.

“That filters all mentions of 15th MEU … throughout the foreign media and provides us a summary to see how the 15th MEU was being mentioned or impact across the information environment, across foreign media. So we would present that probably biweekly … to the commanders,” she said.

Carter in his recent directive stated that Marine Corps commands will be expected to establish task forces or cells consisting of data, knowledge management, AI and digital operations experts to assess the applicability of existing and in-development offerings and produce a list of “forthcoming preferred GenAI capabilities.”

Col. Sean Dynan, who was the commanding officer of 15th MEU during last year’s deployment, said the unit’s use of artificial intelligence technology was just “the tip of the iceberg” for what Marines and amphibious ready groups could potentially do with it in the future.

“When we look at how complex it is to … prepare and supply an ARG/MEU deployed forward, I think that there’s significant opportunity for more use of AI,” he told reporters.

Gen. Eric Smith, commandant of the Corps, recently expressed confidence that Marines — especially the younger cohorts — will embrace genAI effectively.

“I don’t have any concerns about integrating it into the force,” he told DefenseScoop during a Defense Writers Group meeting last month. “My Marines are digital natives. I mean, they grew up with an iPhone 14 in their hands. You know, I grew up with a cord. So the young Marines will figure out how to use that and they’re the ones that are telling us how to do it. They’re completely comfortable with generative AI, with machine-to-machine learning. They’re completely comfortable with using a pad and doing targeting off a pad and passing that targeting data ubiquitously across the force through a sensor cloud and then down to another user through GEO satellites. They’re completely comfortable with that, so I don’t have any concerns about that other than the security of our communications links.”