Last week, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the Ronald Reagan National Security Innovation Base Summit, which the Reagan Foundation hosted. One of a series of conferences the Foundation hosts, NSIB centers around the release of their now 4th annual NSIB Report Card. With ongoing military operations supporting the war in Iran and the DoW navigating the challenges between growing demands for frontier models and decision-making authority (at every level), it was an illuminating time to listen and ask questions — especially since I have been outside that world for so long.

Roger Zakheim, Director of the Reagan Institute, and Rachel Hoff, Policy Director and presenter of the Report Card, ran a deeply thoughtful day that anyone working in Defense Tech should experience. I also highly recommend a deep, close reading of the full Report Card pdf. It is not easy to capture rapidly accelerating technologies through the complex manifold of Defense acquisitions, appropriations, programs, and politics, but the report does this.

Give it a read; I’ll wait.

Push and pull

The largest positive change in a grade — and apparently the largest in the history of the report — is around Indicator 4: Customer Clarity, the “demand signal for customer (government) innovation priorities, including funding and acquisition pathways to match aspiration,” which shifted from a D+ to a B-. The report summarizes:

The Pentagon’s modernization intent is clear and backed by renewed spending commitments with supplemental reconciliation funding and FY26 defense appropriations, as well as calls for a $1.5T FY27 budget. SECWAR’s “Acquisition Transformation Strategy” reinforces a deliberate push for faster, output-driven acquisition. Still, execution is constrained by appropriations delays, stop-gap funding, and limited visibility from appropriation to obligation.

This trend places a clear thumb on the funding scale, acknowledging that nobody loves Continuing Resolutions.

The details here matter, of course, and the Report Card breaks down the grading criteria in more detail. Of particular interest to anyone tracking AI, section 4.1 “U.S. gov’t clearly communicates critical technology priorities needed to support national security missions” (graded at B+) shows real prescience:

Pentagon consolidates innovation ecosystem under CTO control and streamlines innovation priorities: DIU, CDAO, OSC, SCO, TRMC, DARPA all fall under new CTO innovation umbrella; DISG, DIWG, CTO Council replaced by single CTO Action Group (CAG); DIU and SCO designated Pentagon “Field Activities” amid deduplication effort; NSS highlights AI, biotech, quantum computing as focus areas; Pentagon consolidated previous 14 critical tech areas to 6

Administration and Department leadership codifies AI as a major development initiative: White House’s AI Action Plan establishes near-term policy goals; White House memo mandates agencies appoint chief AI officers; DIB clarify CDAO’s role and agency collaboration

Even the most experienced technology — and defense tech — companies can lose valuable time navigating changes in government priorities or departments. Worse, the inherent conservatism critical to military doctrine means bringing novel ideas to the right leaders is always a challenge. Clearer customer signals give the government a powerful tool, both to improve connections to existing technologies and to create clearer lanes for productively sharing new ideas.

Transformation, writ large

Even coming from Google, I find the scope and scale of Defense hard to get my head around. I found the Report Card sections on talent, manufacturing, and innovators deeply helpful for understanding the interplays between traditional contractors, defense tech, and the foundations we all draw upon.

Consider the multi-hundred-billion-dollar swings across investments, cut programs, and R&D. Growth in publicly funded R&D expenditures has remained flat since 2010 in PPP terms. Notice the scale of public defense tech companies compared to legacy peers. The industry faces nearly 2 million unfilled factory jobs and requires manufacturing at a national scale. And we saw all of this before the current acceleration of AI.

No institutions have the same capacity for impact, influence, and change as those of the government. This reality reinforces the importance of Onebrief’s mission and the need to apply AI across our entire stack and experience. It also makes me thankful for the Institute’s convening and research powers — with so much to learn, I will take all the crash courses I can find!