What’s next for the Pentagon’s AI-enabled GigEagle talent matching tool

Thousands are turning to the Defense Department’s artificial intelligence-fueled GigEagle platform to identify talent, expand their professional networks and explore short-term work and research opportunities relevant to unique skillsets, according to a military innovator who helped create the app.

“We’ve crossed 10,000 DOD users, and it’s growing very quickly. In fact, I’m actually making sure we’re not growing too fast,” Brig. Gen. Michael McGinley told DefenseScoop in an interview on the sidelines of AITalks last week. 

McGinley currently serves as the mobilization assistant to the military deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics — and separately, director of the department’s GigEagle Agile Talent Ecosystem Initiative. GigEagle’s roots trace back about seven years, when he set up and led the Pentagon Defense Innovation Unit’s Boston-based outpost.

The tool was originally designed to employ AI and machine learning algorithms to match private sector expertise of reservists and National Guard members with project-based gigs supporting DOD tasks. 

In its latest iteration, GigEagle not only serves individual users who aim to make their skills available across the department, but it’s also expanding with “units” and “headquarters” functions aimed at enhancing workforce planning and analysis with a higher-level point of view.

“We ran a successful prototype [other transaction authority, or OTA] — we graduated — and now we have a production [other transaction, or OT contract], which allows other members throughout other government agencies to also build on top of this. So, I’m looking to build a talent ecosystem where other companies, other organizations, can come in and they can build on top of this,” McGinley said. 

Looking to the future, he noted that the GigEagle team is pursuing a new “aspirational concept” called “talent integration for mission execution,” or TIME, that involves integrating AI agents and automating digital processes. 

“So, all the user would be required to do is put in, ‘This is the problem I’m trying to solve.’ You can imagine the commander in your [area of responsibility] of choice submitting: ‘This is what I’m trying to figure out.’ By having an agent, rather than having to do that manually, the AI will actually break down that problem statement into its component parts to really understand if I’m planning a mission, I need to understand logistics, I need to understand cybersecurity, I need to have a regional area expert, not just somebody who speaks the language, but someone who really understands the operational environment … And then the agents will reach out. We’ve never done that before — that’s what’s so compelling,” McGinley explained.

“If we are serious about building a more lethal force, we need to reimagine how we think about talent, then we need to get after it. And we have a team of folks who are hungry to go do this. It’s been incredibly positive, and it’s working,” he told DefenseScoop.