The Association of the United States Army hosted its annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., on October 13, 14, and 15. The AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition, the premier defense trade show for industry, government, and defense innovation, highlighted recurring themes among many of the exhibitors and discussions – including the use of artificial intelligence in defense, the proliferation of autonomous systems, and the rapid evolution of unmanned systems and the technologies being developed to counter them. AUSA 2025 reflected a defense sector responding to lessons from Ukraine, rapid commercial innovation, and the acceleration of great-power competition.
For the U.S. Army, these technologies are central to its broader modernization strategy and its guiding concept, “Transformation in Contact,” which aims to prepare the force through cross-domain technological integration and adaptability. These technologies are not only redefining the battlefield but also signal where the United States Army is focusing its efforts in the years ahead.
AI and the Data-Driven Battlefield
The rise of artificial intelligence has emerged as one of the most significant disruptive technologies in defense in recent years. AI has become a critical force-multiplier through applications such as data collection and analysis, decision-making, and logistics. The Army has made concentrated efforts to acquire and integrate these capabilities into the force.
Industry was eager to demonstrate products developed to meet these needs. Govini, a defense technology startup, was a notable example. The company purchased prominent advertising around the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where the exposition was held, promoting Ark, its flagship suite of AI-enabled applications focused on defense supply chains and acquisition. In these advertisements, Govini claimed that various Army systems, such as the UH-64 Apache attack helicopter and M1 Abrams tank, operate with Ark. In the weeks before AUSA, the Army announced that it would award a five-year contract to Govini to acquire the Ark platform.
Other contractors, including Palantir, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Anduril, showcased products designed to directly support Army operations with software and systems that assist with decision-making, command and control, situational awareness, and mission execution.
Palantir showcased TITAN, which the company promotes as the “Army’s first AI-defined vehicle.” The system serves as an AI- and machine-learning-enabled ground station and access node that synthesizes data to assist the Army in targeting and decision-making. Palantir delivered its first prototype to the Army in March 2025.
Across the show floor, these displays underscored how the Army is transforming data into a critical asset and seeking to accelerate decision cycles, integrate information across all domains, and support commanders in complex operational environments. These AI-driven approaches reflect broader Army efforts, such as Project Maven and Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), to connect sensors, shooters, and decision-makers through seamless data integration.
Autonomy From Helicopters to Ground Vehicles
Building on these AI applications, the Army is now extending autonomy from data and decision-making to physical platforms. Autonomous systems – including weapons, aircraft, and ground vehicles – were also featured prominently at AUSA.
The most significant autonomous systems announcement at the 2025 exposition was the unveiling of Sikorsky’s S-70UAS “U-Hawk,” an uncrewed and fully autonomous variant of the Black Hawk helicopter developed by the Lockheed Martin subsidiary. Sikorsky showcased the helicopter’s unmanned and autonomous capabilities by modifying a U.S. Army UH-60L Black Hawk, removing its traditional cockpit and replacing it with a cargo compartment that opened in a clamshell configuration.
The U-Hawk, a follow-up on tests of optionally manned Black Hawks conducted by Sikorsky and DARPA, was integrated with Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomy technology.
Sikorsky promoted the ability of the U-Hawk to carry 25% more cargo than a traditional Black Hawk and showcased its roll-on/roll-off capabilities by having an autonomous ground vehicle deploy from a ramp in the cargo compartment. Another capability that Sikorsky demonstrated was the integration of launch-effect systems in the cabin of the helicopter that allow for the deployment of loitering munitions or drones.
Ramsey Bentley, the director of Sikorsky’s Advanced Concepts and Innovations division, highlighted the capability of the aircraft to be controlled by an “operator” armed with a tablet rather than a traditional pilot, allowing for more flexible operations and potential cost savings.
Airbus demonstrated a similar concept to the Sikorsky U-Hawk, with the MQ-72C Lakota Connector, which also featured pilotless operations and a clamshell cargo compartment replacing the cockpit. The Lakota Connector, which is based on the UH-72 Lakota operated by the U.S. Army and the Army National Guard, had its first autonomous test flight in August for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Aerial Logistics Connector program.
The development of autonomous systems also extended to the ground at AUSA. Oshkosh Defense unveiled its Family of Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicles (FMAV). The lineup, which Oshkosh described as production-ready, featured three vehicles with payload-agnostic designs suited for fire missions.
The largest of the vehicles, the optionally manned Extreme Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle (X-MAV), featured a pod of four BGM-109 Tomahawk launch tubes, but was built to support the fielding of the Patriot PAC-3 surface-to-air missile for the Army’s Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher Heavy (CAML-H) program.
The optionally manned Medium Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle (M-MAV), integrate Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) capabilities, silimar to the Army’s M142 HIMARS, and the fully autonomous Light Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle (L-MAV), for missions such as counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) and loitering munitions deployment, were also showcased by Oshkosh.
Other contractors demonstrated their autonomous ground systems such as Boston Dynamics. The company, known for its viral videos showing its robots completing rigorous but often whimsical tasks such as dancing or parkour, showcased its four-legged robot Spot in an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) role.
Autonomy has become a central theme uniting the Army’s modernization priorities. The teaming of modular manned-unmanned systems is essential to the goal of reducing risk to soldiers and conducting effective operations as the proliferation of inexpensive, and expendable systems challenges long-held assumptions about force structure, survivability, and battlefield dominance.
Drones and Counter-Drones: Lessons from Ukraine
Beyond autonomous vehicles and systems, AUSA 2025 also spotlighted how the Army is adapting to a battlespace increasingly shaped by drones and unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Many exhibitors showcased UAS that ranged from quadcopters to loitering munitions to large systems able to conduct deep reconnaissance and even carry and deploy other drones.
Unmanned aerial systems have proved critical on the battlefield of Ukraine. Industry and the Army have paid close attention to the conflict, hoping to learn lessons from the rapid proliferation of drones, evolving doctrine, and how to effectively counter adversary drones. Ukraine has also been a testing ground for industry to apply these lessons in the field and integrate them into products.
One UAS manufacturer, Red Cat, demonstrated its Black Widow, man-portable, short-range reconnaissance drone at AUSA which was selected as one of the two winners of the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program.
A representative from Red Cat highlighted the importance of testing its drones on the battlefields of Ukraine and cited the significant challenges posed by Russian electronic warfare and signal jamming to the effective operation of small UAS, which has blunted the asymmetric advantage they once allowed. In 2023, Red Cat integrated frequency-hopping radios from Doodle Labs into its SSR prototype and successfully tested it against adversary electronic warfare. A representative recounted a story of a Red Cat drone in Ukraine that resisted Russian UAS jamming efforts and instead located, hovered over, and documented the jammer without any operational impact. Red Cat cited these experiences as pivotal for iteration and innovation in its systems being delivered to the Army.
Red Cat aims to further refine its products for the “quickly evolving” needs of the Army through its Red Cat Futures Initiative and implement features such as drone swarm capabilities and AI voice control. The company further plans to integrate its products such as Black Widow, and FANG – a first-person drone designed for tactical use – with drone motherships such as Edge Autonomy’s VXE30 Stalker, which was selected as a prototype for the Army’s Long Range Reconnaissance (LRR) program.
These experiences underline how the war in Ukraine has become both a testing ground and a forcing function for how the Army and industry approach unmanned systems. The conflict’s rapid pace of innovation has pushed developers to shorten iteration cycles and deliver practical solutions faster, while also forcing the Army to reevaluate procurement, fielding, and employment of new technology. The result is a defense ecosystem evolving simultaneously – one informed as much by battlefield experience as by established programs or doctrine.
Electronic Warfare and the Expanding C-UAS Ecosystem
If drone innovation represents one half of the evolving defense ecosystem, the other is the rapidly expanding field dedicated to countering them. The Pentagon has taken rapid steps to develop novel strategies, doctrine, and capabilities to counter the threat that proliferating unmanned aerial systems pose – a lesson readily demonstrated in Ukraine. In July, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James Mingus announced that the Department of Defense would stand up a Joint Interagency Task Force on Counter-UAS (C-UAS) capabilities. Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, the director of this task force, stressed at an AUSA panel that the military must speed up iteration and integrate these capabilities into the force “at speed.”
Industry was eager to display such capabilities on the AUSA exhibition floor, where counter-UAS systems – ranging from kinetic to electronic – were featured prominently among the demonstrations.
AeroVironment, a defense contractor known for its UAS models such as the Switchblade, displayed its Freedom Eagle-1 C-UAS missile at AUSA and was selected as a finalist for the Army’s Long-Range Kinetic Interceptor (LRKI) program which aims to field a low-cost system to counter long-range attack and reconnaissance UAS.
Other companies aimed to provide capabilities to identify, categorize, and track potential UAS threats. Teledyne FLIR Defense unveiled its mobile Cerberus XL C-UAS platform that integrates thermal and visual sensors as well as radar and radio detection to identify UAS targets. The system is also designed to disrupt targets or integrate with other kinetic C-UAS platforms. Motorola showcased its counter-drone command center capable of combining data from drone-detecting sensors through the cloud and analyzing historical flight data for detected UAS.
Electronic warfare capabilities, including UAS jammers and energy weapons, were also prominently displayed at AUSA. Epirus revealed a version of its Leonidas high-power microwave weapon mounted on an autonomous vehicle capable of disrupting and temporarily disabling swarms of UAS. Air and Space Forces Magazine reported that the U.S. Air Force expressed interest in Leonidas following the Army’s acquisition of the system in 2023. DZYNE, Honeywell, IAI, and Leonardo DRS, among other defense contractors, demonstrated mobile C-UAS jamming and soft-kill solutions.
As unmanned systems proliferate – especially low-cost systems – the Army’s modernization priorities increasingly center on countering and defending against them. Battlefields from Ukraine to the Middle East have shown the rapid spread of drones and the destructive potential they pose. Fielding counter-UAS systems will be as essential, if not more so, than developing UAS systems themselves.
Towards the Future Force
The 2025 Association of the United States Army Meeting and Exposition offered more than just a showcase of emerging hardware and systems; instead, it captured an industry and a force in major transition. From AI-enabled decision tools, to novel autonomous systems, and technologies surrounding UAS, the defense ecosystem is converging on a common goal: building a force that can adapt swiftly and fight with increased precision.
The event also revealed how industry and the Pentagon are learning in parallel. The introduction of Silicon Valley–style innovation into defense, driven by combat experience and operational demand, is shaping both acquisition and development faster than traditional cycles can keep pace with. Leaders at AUSA, including Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, emphasized the demand to shorten development timelines and get capabilities to warfighters.
AUSA 2025 illustrated, however, that the future of the Army and its capacity to fight its next battles will not hinge on a single breakthrough, but on its ability to combine technology, doctrine, and the warfighter into one flexible enterprise. Artificial intelligence, autonomy, and drones are no longer experimental tools, but now define the nature of modern warfare. Harnessing this momentum into lasting advantage will be the Army’s next great challenge.