New Army PCA wants more AI-enabled cyber at the edge for offensive, defensive ops

 The Army’s new principal cyber advisor came into his role ready to align with the service’s overarching transformation initiative, and as part of this he’s set on enabling artificial intelligence for defensive and offensive cyber operations, he told Breaking Defense in an interview Wednesday. 

Brandon Pugh, an Army reservist who formerly served as the director and a resident senior fellow for the R Street Institute’s Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats team, started in his role as PCA about eight weeks ago. The top advisor to the Army’s secretary and chief of staff on all things cyber, Pugh is the third person to serve in this congressionally mandated role, following Michael Sulmeyer who left his post in March 2024 to become the assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy in the Pentagon. Pugh is also the first in his role to be appointed by the president. Previously, those who held this role were appointed by officials within the service.

After meeting with various leaders across the service and the joint force, Pugh said what he’s come to realize is that the service needs to better leverage AI for cyber at the operational level instead of just at the enterprise level like the Pentagon and the services have been doing for a few years now. 

Read more at Breaking Defense