theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Defense Tech | Tara Murphy Dougherty, Air | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Defense Tech

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Speakers

Tara Murphy Dougherty

CEO

Air

John Furrier

Co-Founder & Co-CEO

SiliconANGLE Media, Inc.

play_circle_outline Company rebrand to Air reflecting mission and enterprise readiness focus

play_circle_outline Enterprise readiness: synchronizing siloed functions for real-time mission outcomes

play_circle_outline AI-Native Readiness Graph: Agentic Orchestration, Execution Centers for Sustainment, and Proprietary Datasets

play_circle_outline ROI and velocity example: USS Reagan parts identification, thousands of hours saved, mission success

play_circle_outline Tactical-edge safety: predictive maintenance from sensored vehicles to prevent failures

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Tara Murphy Dougherty, Air | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Defense Tech

Tara Murphy Dougherty

CEO Air

John Furrier

Co-Founder & Co-CEO SiliconANGLE Media, Inc.

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John Furrier

>> (INTRO)Hello, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We are here in theCUBE's NYSE Wired studio. Of course, we have our Palo Alto studio connecting Silicon Valley to Wall Street. This is our NYSE Wired program Defense Tech Series. We explore with leaders what's going on in defense space, which is a technology booming market. Tara Murphy Dougherty is here, CEO of Air. Talk about enterprise risk. Great to see you. Thanks for coming back on theCUBE. Appreciate

>> it.Thanks for having me,

John Furrier

>> John.Well, first of all, congratulations on the momentum. I know you guys do extremely well. The market right now with AI, physical AI in government, public sector. With the industry coming together and partnering. It's created a whole new operating model around how public sector is operating. AI is clearly fueling a lot of the edge devices. And so there's a— now you have AI intelligence. You guys have rebranded the company. You have Enterprise Readiness Platform. So a lot of momentum. Explain, set the table. Rebranding, why? And this enterprise readiness concept?

>> Yes. Well, very happy to jump into all of this, and I'm thrilled to be here and good to see you again. So let me start with the rebrand. We needed a name for the company and a brand and identity that reflected the business that we already have been for years and the direction where we're going. And so we really channeled something that reflects how essential how important this mission space is and how ubiquitous the need for solving readiness challenges are across both government and industry. And so that's how Air was born. And I couldn't agree with you more that there's a new operating model with public sector. We've seen it on the government side in terms of what departments and agencies are open to. And certainly we've seen it on the industry and private capital side where there's so much more vibrancy in this space.

John Furrier

>> I mean, a lot of people get— look at defense tech, they think, okay, we have some wars going on, but there's a bigger picture here. Explain enterprise readiness, why that's important. What does it solve? I see data needs to feed the AI. Public sector is not known for the most unified environment. Finance is involved. These big buildouts are starting to see new vendors come in in the space. A lot's going on. Explain the macro picture here.

>> Yes. The macro picture is that America is not ready. And that's fundamentally the vision of the company, is to create a more ready America through this approach of enterprise readiness. Whether you're talking about the military front lines or you're talking about semiconductors or you're talking about public health as a mission, all of those are national security at their core. And today, the front line does not get what it needs from the national security enterprise. That's what we call the readiness gap. And closing that is what enterprise readiness can do.

John Furrier

>> I talk about enterprise readiness as a term because the first thing that might jump into my mind is corporate enterprise, but the government's operating like an enterprise. So it's kind of a play on words. Explain what enterprise readiness means in your world because it's public sector, but you're seeing like the SpaceXes of the world, new kinds of providers are coming in, building new things. That could be hardware, that could be software. Talk about that enterprise readiness definition. Explain that concept.

>> It's— you're absolutely right. Hardware, software, large programs, manufacturing. Essentially what we mean by enterprise readiness is connectivity among functions that are often siloed in organizations today, but that must be working together in an orchestrated way in real time in order to fulfill their mission and ultimately deliver their products, whether it is warfighting lethality or it is a product that you are taking to market. And so what our platform does is it creates a system that synchronizes all of those activities, particularly across the production, the sustainment, the maintenance, and the logistics of various applications.

John Furrier

>> Talk about the front lines. You mentioned readiness, it's about preparing the front lines. What happens when things aren't ready? And compare that to what readiness looks like. What does success look like? And what happens when people have to take heroic moves to brute force the action because they're on the front lines. They know there's no— they're there.

>> That's right. They're going to get it done. The question is, is the system helping them or are they trying to overcome their own system? So I'll give you 3 examples that show you how pervasive this is across the national security enterprise today. The Army has grounded 400 of 700 Apache helicopters due to safety and maintenance issues. The Navy over the past decade has lost 15,000 operational sea days for its nuclear submarine fleet. And the Air Force has broken a new record of low mission capable rates at about 60% across the entire fleet, which basically means that out of every 100 jets we have, almost two-thirds of them can fly or operate. So that is the gap. In readiness. And that is what we have to solve because the only alternative is either mission failure, which of course is not acceptable to Americans, or overcoming it with manual workarounds in that group.

John Furrier

>> Talk about the psychology of people who are mission-driven in your industry. They're hardcore. Mission failure is not an option. Okay, so talk about that and compare that to the platform solutions because I hear things like I can't get this. I don't have this part of this. I'm not ready. Or the process slows us down. The paperwork, bureaucracy. Talk about the psychology of the frontline mission-driven people. Failure's not an option. And what the platform does for that person.

>> Yes. Well, I think this is why so many of us come to this field and wanna be a part of it. Our company, about a third of our workforce are military veterans because there's just something in the DNA of humans who wanna be a part of something bigger than themselves. Who fall in love with this country, believe in American global dominance and the benefit it has for humanity. And when you extrapolate out what we're doing, that's really what we're trying to impact through, in our world, enterprise readiness. And so what we are enabling is that soldier to be able to automatically put together an AI-driven convoy plan that ultimately reduces the number of convoys out on a battlefield, therefore protecting human lives. The alternative approach is I'm going to figure it out with a piece of cardboard in the back of a truck or maybe an Excel spreadsheet. And exactly like you're saying, we'll see what happens. We'll accept the risk. But it all comes down to that mentality that you mentioned of being willing to do what it takes to get the job done.

John Furrier

>> They talk about the platform because AI is introducing and actually changing conventional wisdom.

>> Yes,

John Furrier

>> the scripts are flipping. IT has changed. Dashboard-based systems, data accuracy. Safety is a huge issue, as you just pointed out. So talk about what the back end does and the platform, what kind of techs involve the graphs, what's getting better.

>> Yeah.

John Furrier

>> To make that readiness viable.

>> Absolutely. So there are two things that have really, really helped our product gain market dominance. One is we have a proprietary data set. That means we had to get very good at AI and really machine learning years and years and years ago that really took us on a path of being AI native from the very beginning. So now in an agentic era, that is something that we haven't had to retrofit into our product, but has been part of our story from the start. And then the second thing that is really differentiated is that we've purpose-built this product for this market and for this readiness mission, and that just doesn't exist otherwise. And the reality is that I think the thing we saw is that the size of the market is so large that you can be focused if you know how to succeed in a commercial way with the public sector and therefore build purpose, tailored products for it. And so what we've done is we've combined a unique Readiness Graph that connects our proprietary dataset to government operational data. We have an Agentic orchestration layer that activates all of that data and takes users to decisions and actions rather than visualizations. And then on top of all of that are the Execution Centers that are really the command centers for those users across those functions I described.

John Furrier

>> It's interesting. Not only is it a defense tech opportunity for you guys as a category, congratulations on that, but you're also hitting some key trends around private AI, domain expertise, specialized intelligence where hallucinations are unacceptable. So you're starting to see if you use kind of a general intelligence model, which is basically the internet, that may or may not be great for what you're doing. Talk about that piece of the platform and how meticulous you guys think about that. How do you frame that? How do you convey that messaging? Like, okay, hey, look, we have domain expertise, we have the databases. It's basically uncrawled data. It's basically unlocked.

>> You're absolutely right. The internet doesn't suffice for the national security mission. And yet we have users and customers that are trying to Google their way to information about sensitive parts for a lethal military platform. There definitely is a better way. So we think about security, of course, as a prime priority and baking that in again to the architecture of the system as well as our operating models from day one is essential. That, of course, also applies in the AI context. And I think we're really helped by the fact that we have sovereign AI models that are therefore very secure, very reliable. But also importantly, like you said, John, they pick up on that domain context. And it comes back to this idea of being purpose-built around this mission, because what we really care about is we care about looking at things through the lens of an F-16 fighter jet, for example, not just broad

John Furrier

>> general—Yeah, I love sovereignty because sovereignty has kind of become a global concept. You live and breathe sovereignty every day. We're sovereign to the United States of America. That's the goal. You have to have control. You got to know where the apps are running and why.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> And you have to nail all this stuff down. Explain the importance of that sovereignty piece. That's a huge deal.

>> It's a huge deal. It allows us to bake in the specifics that tie into the really esoteric nature of the work that our users do. The mission space that we're talking about, that sustainment of this aircraft fleet or optimizing operations of an aircraft carrier at the parts level, it just isn't generalizable. And also, like you mentioned earlier, there's no margin for error. So we've got to be really unique and tailored and not dependent on systems or models that might be available one day but not available.

John Furrier

>> I was doing an interview with someone who was in the space category, and they were talking about docking to the space station and the velocity and the combustion that's involved. You can't make a mistake. No, you have so many forces coming together. So their AI has to be so fast, so accurate. And you talk about a docking procedure,

>> right?

John Furrier

>> It looks good on paper, but executing in space, the consequences are grave. You can't apply that kind of ROI and velocity change into the space that you're in because It's different. Talk about the ROI and velocity. AI has a high velocity environment, but the ROI is maybe different. Talk about that, those two pieces, and where is the ROI coming from? I could see the mission piece around the utilization one, but what is the ROI equation? And talk about the velocity pressure from AI.

>> Absolutely. Well, the ROI equation in our space, in national security writ large, has to be where mission impact is the most important variable. But the great thing about the readiness system and the idea of getting to a continuously healthy state is it really should pay for itself. So I'll give you an example. Our product is being used by sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, which is out to sea right now. And ahead of leaving dry dock, they were using the product in order to assess what parts are we taking with us in order to maintain not just the carrier, but the carrier-based jets that are on board. And those aircraft were going to lose 412 parts that according to the generic supply list, these sailors should cut in order to save roughly $20 million. $20 million might be a lot of money to an individual. Believe me, it's not to the US Navy. And what these sailors were able to find in our product is that those are essential parts validated by data that was pulled off the USS Lincoln just returning from the Middle East in those operations. And so in minutes, as opposed to not happening at all, which is the greatest risk, or hours and hours and weeks of manual effort, these parts were identified as critical. They were kept on the carrier or supplied to the carrier in order to support military operations where the ROI there is mission success. That wouldn't have happened otherwise. But it doesn't have to stop there. So my point about paying for itself is also during those weeks before leaving dock, these sailors dropped their backlog analysis timeline from 300 hours to less than 10 minutes. They saved more than 2,000 hours of administrative work. And that's where you get the velocity that you're talking about as well as the—

John Furrier

>> and the psychology. The morale is up, too, because it's work no one wants to do. That work that they can save time on. So

>> absolutely no one joins the Navy to work in spreadsheets and do data analysis.

John Furrier

>> Yeah, it's like, okay, I got to do that versus really focusing on the task. Yeah, I love that example of the parts because the learning coming from the Lincoln carrier coming in is real data.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> And you're applying that primary data to the next aircraft carrier. Would that have not happened? or what would have happened And without Air,

>> that would not have happened. And so we often talk as a company about connecting the factory to the fight. And John, you and I have talked in the past about the disconnect between battlefield operations or operational activity and what has in the past traditionally been treated as back office or administrative functions. You can put sustainment and supply and logistics squarely into that bucket. And What we have seen really start to change, partially because we've created the technology that closes that seam, is the enterprises recognizing that these functions are warfighting functions and warfighting enablers, and we have to treat them as such. So previously, that data coming off the Lincoln would have been ignored and the Reagan would have been sent out to sea with a generic parts list that may or may not be right.

John Furrier

>> They're kind of guessing.

>> Yeah, and now we're bringing receipts.

John Furrier

>> Yeah, now it's empirical. You get quantified data. Yeah. All right. Now talk about the safety piece, because one thing that comes up that's not talked about a lot, and I want to get it on the table, is that there's actually a safety component at the tactical edge. We're talking about mission.

>> Absolutely.

John Furrier

>> Safety is the number one concern of the fighters. Yes. Give us some examples of how you see that playing out, because the DOD has poured a lot of money into trying to figure out in the old way how to provide the kind of readiness to, one, have mission success and safety in the lives of those involved.

>> Absolutely. A great example of the work that's happening in this space, adopting an enterprise readiness framework, is with the Army around ground vehicles. So the way things are traditionally done, a lot of those vehicles are becoming sensored platforms where the data around their performance, the parts that are degrading is now available in real time. But too often, not just in the Army, across the entire— all military services, that data will go from that vehicle and just get dumped in a database or warehouse somewhere and not utilized because of the disconnect. There's no system to absorb it and connect it to the rest of the ecosystem or the rest of the enterprise. So today we're picking that data up. We're telling people where to look out for potential failures ahead of them actually happening, which drives safety and protection. And it also decreases the turnaround time to make repairs and get people better, more reliable systems.

John Furrier

>> You know what I love about what you're doing is, one, the mission is a super important thing. You talk about gaps, you fill in the gaps with the readiness platform. Okay, love that. That's got a very tech feel to it. But you're also seeing the institutional friction change.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> I mean, it's well known in public sector that there's always friction, process, bureaucracy, educated guess, antiquated systems, inadequacy. As you start to get the platform out there, how has the institutional friction gone away? You get more repeatability, more success wins under your belt. The we can't do it, we're not— that's not the way it's done, right mentality. Is changing. You're starting to see new entrants come in as system integrators, new devices, new capabilities. What's the institutional mindset friction scene look like? Can you share your thoughts on that?

>> It's mostly optimistic, I'm very happy to report. And I think the reason for optimism is we are hearing mostly from leadership, not just political, not just military, but across civilian, military and the presidential administration say none of this is good enough anymore and the friction has to go away. And then there's been an influx, especially into the Department of War, of leaders who come from not just private sector backgrounds, but from the tech sector, which hates friction. We're allergic to friction and we're— no one wants more friction. Exactly. And so there's been this incredible amount of conviction to bringing it down as opposed to, I think previously the community has felt, oh, well, we just— it's something we have to live with because it's the world's largest bureaucracy and that's the way things are done. And that's just anti-entrepreneurial thinking. And there's absolutely been a shift.

John Furrier

>> Yeah. And also too, all that friction is built up over decades and decades of execution.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> And the battlefield has changed. So talk about that. My final question is that, a lot of people just don't understand the magnitude of the change in the battlefield. Could you share your thoughts on the scope of change, what kind of impact does that mean? Because people, they watch the news, they watch things, they don't understand that the old rules kind of don't apply. So new rules are here, right? The battlefield has changed. We have to change. And it's optimistic. We see, the leadership say all the time, new game, new sheriff in town kind of vibe. What is that battlefield and what's been the biggest change and what is it? How would you talk to people about that piece of it? Because That, I think, is a really big deal.

>> Yes, I think the battlefield right now is akin to a teenager that just got its driver's license. It's at this tricky in-between stage where it has the freedom of an adult but not a fully developed prefrontal cortex. And the reason I say that is because you look at wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, we're seeing trench warfare and archaic methods of fighting and the methods of the past 30 years with the huge usage of munitions and anti-air defenses, and war looks awfully similar to the way war has looked for decades. And yet you also have unbelievable technological change happening very much, whether it is in cyber to include the movement of autonomy and the introduction of drones that we've also seen play out between Ukraine and Russia. And So the challenge to the United States is being able to do both at once and still be the world's best military power. And so the rules have changed. We have to fix production, not just for legacy systems, but for the huge numbers of attritable drones that we want to bring into our warfighting concepts as well.

John Furrier

>> Well, Tara, great to have you on. I love the perspective, love the commentary, and love the insight. Final question: as we get more miles behind the wheel, if you will, as a country How are you guys evolving? Share your vision. What's next? What are you optimizing for? What's your focus?

>> Absolutely. So I mentioned earlier, our vision is to create a more ready America. I believe that our contribution to that is to get industry and government working together to create this continuous state of enterprise readiness rather than thinking about these things as individual static metrics to manually change. And so what's coming for us is we're going to continue working in the public sector and doing as much as we can help there. We're expanding into the commercial sector, working with defense industrial-based partners as well as their suppliers, and just trying to keep up this insane growth rate.

John Furrier

>> Well, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Defense tech is one of many of the areas where AI intelligence is affecting the real world. Physical AI, private AI, getting the right data, getting it trusted, safe, and accurate is again being optimized. You're starting to see real examples of how intelligence is affecting the real world, impacting the real world. Doing our part here on theCUBE. Thanks for watching.

Tara Murphy Dougherty, Air | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Defense Tech

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John Furrier

>> (INTRO)Hello, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We are here in theCUBE's NYSE Wired studio. Of course, we have our Palo Alto studio connecting Silicon Valley to Wall Street. This is our NYSE Wired program Defense Tech Series. We explore with leaders what's going on in defense space, which is a technology booming market. Tara Murphy Dougherty is here, CEO of Air. Talk about enterprise risk. Great to see you. Thanks for coming back on theCUBE. Appreciate

>> it.Thanks for having me,

John Furrier

>> John.Well, first of all, congratulations on the momentum. I know you guys do extremely well. The market right now with AI, physical AI in government, public sector. With the industry coming together and partnering. It's created a whole new operating model around how public sector is operating. AI is clearly fueling a lot of the edge devices. And so there's a— now you have AI intelligence. You guys have rebranded the company. You have Enterprise Readiness Platform. So a lot of momentum. Explain, set the table. Rebranding, why? And this enterprise readiness concept?

>> Yes. Well, very happy to jump into all of this, and I'm thrilled to be here and good to see you again. So let me start with the rebrand. We needed a name for the company and a brand and identity that reflected the business that we already have been for years and the direction where we're going. And so we really channeled something that reflects how essential how important this mission space is and how ubiquitous the need for solving readiness challenges are across both government and industry. And so that's how Air was born. And I couldn't agree with you more that there's a new operating model with public sector. We've seen it on the government side in terms of what departments and agencies are open to. And certainly we've seen it on the industry and private capital side where there's so much more vibrancy in this space.

John Furrier

>> I mean, a lot of people get— look at defense tech, they think, okay, we have some wars going on, but there's a bigger picture here. Explain enterprise readiness, why that's important. What does it solve? I see data needs to feed the AI. Public sector is not known for the most unified environment. Finance is involved. These big buildouts are starting to see new vendors come in in the space. A lot's going on. Explain the macro picture here.

>> Yes. The macro picture is that America is not ready. And that's fundamentally the vision of the company, is to create a more ready America through this approach of enterprise readiness. Whether you're talking about the military front lines or you're talking about semiconductors or you're talking about public health as a mission, all of those are national security at their core. And today, the front line does not get what it needs from the national security enterprise. That's what we call the readiness gap. And closing that is what enterprise readiness can do.

John Furrier

>> I talk about enterprise readiness as a term because the first thing that might jump into my mind is corporate enterprise, but the government's operating like an enterprise. So it's kind of a play on words. Explain what enterprise readiness means in your world because it's public sector, but you're seeing like the SpaceXes of the world, new kinds of providers are coming in, building new things. That could be hardware, that could be software. Talk about that enterprise readiness definition. Explain that concept.

>> It's— you're absolutely right. Hardware, software, large programs, manufacturing. Essentially what we mean by enterprise readiness is connectivity among functions that are often siloed in organizations today, but that must be working together in an orchestrated way in real time in order to fulfill their mission and ultimately deliver their products, whether it is warfighting lethality or it is a product that you are taking to market. And so what our platform does is it creates a system that synchronizes all of those activities, particularly across the production, the sustainment, the maintenance, and the logistics of various applications.

John Furrier

>> Talk about the front lines. You mentioned readiness, it's about preparing the front lines. What happens when things aren't ready? And compare that to what readiness looks like. What does success look like? And what happens when people have to take heroic moves to brute force the action because they're on the front lines. They know there's no— they're there.

>> That's right. They're going to get it done. The question is, is the system helping them or are they trying to overcome their own system? So I'll give you 3 examples that show you how pervasive this is across the national security enterprise today. The Army has grounded 400 of 700 Apache helicopters due to safety and maintenance issues. The Navy over the past decade has lost 15,000 operational sea days for its nuclear submarine fleet. And the Air Force has broken a new record of low mission capable rates at about 60% across the entire fleet, which basically means that out of every 100 jets we have, almost two-thirds of them can fly or operate. So that is the gap. In readiness. And that is what we have to solve because the only alternative is either mission failure, which of course is not acceptable to Americans, or overcoming it with manual workarounds in that group.

John Furrier

>> Talk about the psychology of people who are mission-driven in your industry. They're hardcore. Mission failure is not an option. Okay, so talk about that and compare that to the platform solutions because I hear things like I can't get this. I don't have this part of this. I'm not ready. Or the process slows us down. The paperwork, bureaucracy. Talk about the psychology of the frontline mission-driven people. Failure's not an option. And what the platform does for that person.

>> Yes. Well, I think this is why so many of us come to this field and wanna be a part of it. Our company, about a third of our workforce are military veterans because there's just something in the DNA of humans who wanna be a part of something bigger than themselves. Who fall in love with this country, believe in American global dominance and the benefit it has for humanity. And when you extrapolate out what we're doing, that's really what we're trying to impact through, in our world, enterprise readiness. And so what we are enabling is that soldier to be able to automatically put together an AI-driven convoy plan that ultimately reduces the number of convoys out on a battlefield, therefore protecting human lives. The alternative approach is I'm going to figure it out with a piece of cardboard in the back of a truck or maybe an Excel spreadsheet. And exactly like you're saying, we'll see what happens. We'll accept the risk. But it all comes down to that mentality that you mentioned of being willing to do what it takes to get the job done.

John Furrier

>> They talk about the platform because AI is introducing and actually changing conventional wisdom.

>> Yes,

John Furrier

>> the scripts are flipping. IT has changed. Dashboard-based systems, data accuracy. Safety is a huge issue, as you just pointed out. So talk about what the back end does and the platform, what kind of techs involve the graphs, what's getting better.

>> Yeah.

John Furrier

>> To make that readiness viable.

>> Absolutely. So there are two things that have really, really helped our product gain market dominance. One is we have a proprietary data set. That means we had to get very good at AI and really machine learning years and years and years ago that really took us on a path of being AI native from the very beginning. So now in an agentic era, that is something that we haven't had to retrofit into our product, but has been part of our story from the start. And then the second thing that is really differentiated is that we've purpose-built this product for this market and for this readiness mission, and that just doesn't exist otherwise. And the reality is that I think the thing we saw is that the size of the market is so large that you can be focused if you know how to succeed in a commercial way with the public sector and therefore build purpose, tailored products for it. And so what we've done is we've combined a unique Readiness Graph that connects our proprietary dataset to government operational data. We have an Agentic orchestration layer that activates all of that data and takes users to decisions and actions rather than visualizations. And then on top of all of that are the Execution Centers that are really the command centers for those users across those functions I described.

John Furrier

>> It's interesting. Not only is it a defense tech opportunity for you guys as a category, congratulations on that, but you're also hitting some key trends around private AI, domain expertise, specialized intelligence where hallucinations are unacceptable. So you're starting to see if you use kind of a general intelligence model, which is basically the internet, that may or may not be great for what you're doing. Talk about that piece of the platform and how meticulous you guys think about that. How do you frame that? How do you convey that messaging? Like, okay, hey, look, we have domain expertise, we have the databases. It's basically uncrawled data. It's basically unlocked.

>> You're absolutely right. The internet doesn't suffice for the national security mission. And yet we have users and customers that are trying to Google their way to information about sensitive parts for a lethal military platform. There definitely is a better way. So we think about security, of course, as a prime priority and baking that in again to the architecture of the system as well as our operating models from day one is essential. That, of course, also applies in the AI context. And I think we're really helped by the fact that we have sovereign AI models that are therefore very secure, very reliable. But also importantly, like you said, John, they pick up on that domain context. And it comes back to this idea of being purpose-built around this mission, because what we really care about is we care about looking at things through the lens of an F-16 fighter jet, for example, not just broad

John Furrier

>> general—Yeah, I love sovereignty because sovereignty has kind of become a global concept. You live and breathe sovereignty every day. We're sovereign to the United States of America. That's the goal. You have to have control. You got to know where the apps are running and why.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> And you have to nail all this stuff down. Explain the importance of that sovereignty piece. That's a huge deal.

>> It's a huge deal. It allows us to bake in the specifics that tie into the really esoteric nature of the work that our users do. The mission space that we're talking about, that sustainment of this aircraft fleet or optimizing operations of an aircraft carrier at the parts level, it just isn't generalizable. And also, like you mentioned earlier, there's no margin for error. So we've got to be really unique and tailored and not dependent on systems or models that might be available one day but not available.

John Furrier

>> I was doing an interview with someone who was in the space category, and they were talking about docking to the space station and the velocity and the combustion that's involved. You can't make a mistake. No, you have so many forces coming together. So their AI has to be so fast, so accurate. And you talk about a docking procedure,

>> right?

John Furrier

>> It looks good on paper, but executing in space, the consequences are grave. You can't apply that kind of ROI and velocity change into the space that you're in because It's different. Talk about the ROI and velocity. AI has a high velocity environment, but the ROI is maybe different. Talk about that, those two pieces, and where is the ROI coming from? I could see the mission piece around the utilization one, but what is the ROI equation? And talk about the velocity pressure from AI.

>> Absolutely. Well, the ROI equation in our space, in national security writ large, has to be where mission impact is the most important variable. But the great thing about the readiness system and the idea of getting to a continuously healthy state is it really should pay for itself. So I'll give you an example. Our product is being used by sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, which is out to sea right now. And ahead of leaving dry dock, they were using the product in order to assess what parts are we taking with us in order to maintain not just the carrier, but the carrier-based jets that are on board. And those aircraft were going to lose 412 parts that according to the generic supply list, these sailors should cut in order to save roughly $20 million. $20 million might be a lot of money to an individual. Believe me, it's not to the US Navy. And what these sailors were able to find in our product is that those are essential parts validated by data that was pulled off the USS Lincoln just returning from the Middle East in those operations. And so in minutes, as opposed to not happening at all, which is the greatest risk, or hours and hours and weeks of manual effort, these parts were identified as critical. They were kept on the carrier or supplied to the carrier in order to support military operations where the ROI there is mission success. That wouldn't have happened otherwise. But it doesn't have to stop there. So my point about paying for itself is also during those weeks before leaving dock, these sailors dropped their backlog analysis timeline from 300 hours to less than 10 minutes. They saved more than 2,000 hours of administrative work. And that's where you get the velocity that you're talking about as well as the—

John Furrier

>> and the psychology. The morale is up, too, because it's work no one wants to do. That work that they can save time on. So

>> absolutely no one joins the Navy to work in spreadsheets and do data analysis.

John Furrier

>> Yeah, it's like, okay, I got to do that versus really focusing on the task. Yeah, I love that example of the parts because the learning coming from the Lincoln carrier coming in is real data.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> And you're applying that primary data to the next aircraft carrier. Would that have not happened? or what would have happened And without Air,

>> that would not have happened. And so we often talk as a company about connecting the factory to the fight. And John, you and I have talked in the past about the disconnect between battlefield operations or operational activity and what has in the past traditionally been treated as back office or administrative functions. You can put sustainment and supply and logistics squarely into that bucket. And What we have seen really start to change, partially because we've created the technology that closes that seam, is the enterprises recognizing that these functions are warfighting functions and warfighting enablers, and we have to treat them as such. So previously, that data coming off the Lincoln would have been ignored and the Reagan would have been sent out to sea with a generic parts list that may or may not be right.

John Furrier

>> They're kind of guessing.

>> Yeah, and now we're bringing receipts.

John Furrier

>> Yeah, now it's empirical. You get quantified data. Yeah. All right. Now talk about the safety piece, because one thing that comes up that's not talked about a lot, and I want to get it on the table, is that there's actually a safety component at the tactical edge. We're talking about mission.

>> Absolutely.

John Furrier

>> Safety is the number one concern of the fighters. Yes. Give us some examples of how you see that playing out, because the DOD has poured a lot of money into trying to figure out in the old way how to provide the kind of readiness to, one, have mission success and safety in the lives of those involved.

>> Absolutely. A great example of the work that's happening in this space, adopting an enterprise readiness framework, is with the Army around ground vehicles. So the way things are traditionally done, a lot of those vehicles are becoming sensored platforms where the data around their performance, the parts that are degrading is now available in real time. But too often, not just in the Army, across the entire— all military services, that data will go from that vehicle and just get dumped in a database or warehouse somewhere and not utilized because of the disconnect. There's no system to absorb it and connect it to the rest of the ecosystem or the rest of the enterprise. So today we're picking that data up. We're telling people where to look out for potential failures ahead of them actually happening, which drives safety and protection. And it also decreases the turnaround time to make repairs and get people better, more reliable systems.

John Furrier

>> You know what I love about what you're doing is, one, the mission is a super important thing. You talk about gaps, you fill in the gaps with the readiness platform. Okay, love that. That's got a very tech feel to it. But you're also seeing the institutional friction change.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> I mean, it's well known in public sector that there's always friction, process, bureaucracy, educated guess, antiquated systems, inadequacy. As you start to get the platform out there, how has the institutional friction gone away? You get more repeatability, more success wins under your belt. The we can't do it, we're not— that's not the way it's done, right mentality. Is changing. You're starting to see new entrants come in as system integrators, new devices, new capabilities. What's the institutional mindset friction scene look like? Can you share your thoughts on that?

>> It's mostly optimistic, I'm very happy to report. And I think the reason for optimism is we are hearing mostly from leadership, not just political, not just military, but across civilian, military and the presidential administration say none of this is good enough anymore and the friction has to go away. And then there's been an influx, especially into the Department of War, of leaders who come from not just private sector backgrounds, but from the tech sector, which hates friction. We're allergic to friction and we're— no one wants more friction. Exactly. And so there's been this incredible amount of conviction to bringing it down as opposed to, I think previously the community has felt, oh, well, we just— it's something we have to live with because it's the world's largest bureaucracy and that's the way things are done. And that's just anti-entrepreneurial thinking. And there's absolutely been a shift.

John Furrier

>> Yeah. And also too, all that friction is built up over decades and decades of execution.

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> And the battlefield has changed. So talk about that. My final question is that, a lot of people just don't understand the magnitude of the change in the battlefield. Could you share your thoughts on the scope of change, what kind of impact does that mean? Because people, they watch the news, they watch things, they don't understand that the old rules kind of don't apply. So new rules are here, right? The battlefield has changed. We have to change. And it's optimistic. We see, the leadership say all the time, new game, new sheriff in town kind of vibe. What is that battlefield and what's been the biggest change and what is it? How would you talk to people about that piece of it? Because That, I think, is a really big deal.

>> Yes, I think the battlefield right now is akin to a teenager that just got its driver's license. It's at this tricky in-between stage where it has the freedom of an adult but not a fully developed prefrontal cortex. And the reason I say that is because you look at wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, we're seeing trench warfare and archaic methods of fighting and the methods of the past 30 years with the huge usage of munitions and anti-air defenses, and war looks awfully similar to the way war has looked for decades. And yet you also have unbelievable technological change happening very much, whether it is in cyber to include the movement of autonomy and the introduction of drones that we've also seen play out between Ukraine and Russia. And So the challenge to the United States is being able to do both at once and still be the world's best military power. And so the rules have changed. We have to fix production, not just for legacy systems, but for the huge numbers of attritable drones that we want to bring into our warfighting concepts as well.

John Furrier

>> Well, Tara, great to have you on. I love the perspective, love the commentary, and love the insight. Final question: as we get more miles behind the wheel, if you will, as a country How are you guys evolving? Share your vision. What's next? What are you optimizing for? What's your focus?

>> Absolutely. So I mentioned earlier, our vision is to create a more ready America. I believe that our contribution to that is to get industry and government working together to create this continuous state of enterprise readiness rather than thinking about these things as individual static metrics to manually change. And so what's coming for us is we're going to continue working in the public sector and doing as much as we can help there. We're expanding into the commercial sector, working with defense industrial-based partners as well as their suppliers, and just trying to keep up this insane growth rate.

John Furrier

>> Well, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Defense tech is one of many of the areas where AI intelligence is affecting the real world. Physical AI, private AI, getting the right data, getting it trusted, safe, and accurate is again being optimized. You're starting to see real examples of how intelligence is affecting the real world, impacting the real world. Doing our part here on theCUBE. Thanks for watching.