Tinker workshop draws overflow crowd as Department of War scales enterprise AI

Photo By Paul Shirk | Maximillian Castelli, Google Public Sector AI specialist, explains effective prompt engineering during an artificial intelligence workshop at Tinker Air Force Base July 23, 2026. The workshop taught over 350 attendees about GenAI.mil capabilities and developing features. (U.S. Air Force photo by Paul Shirk)  

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA, UNITED STATES

08.05.2026

Story by 2nd Lt. Anthony Highland 

72nd Air Base Wing

OKLAHOMA CITY – All seats were full during an artificial intelligence workshop at Tinker Air Force Base July 23. Latecomers lined the walls at the Tinker Event Center ballroom to take notes on a subject that has moved to the center of the defense enterprise: how to use AI to better execute missions. Facilitators walked attendees through prompt engineering and techniques for applying AI to problem-solving, creative thinking and process optimization. Two breakout sessions in smaller rooms, also filled past capacity, went deeper into prompt crafting, AI agents and model behavior. "Artificial intelligence is no longer just a concept for the battlefield of tomorrow; it is a modern driver of operational readiness today," said Col. Cisco Harris, Tinker Installation and 72nd Air Base Wing commander. "As we integrate AI into everyday operations here at Tinker, we can identify new ways to prepare our people and our aircraft. This allows our warfighters to have the reliable airpower they need to deter and defeat any adversary, anywhere in the world." The workshop's practical anchor was GenAI.mil, the Department of War's enterprise generative AI platform, stood up in December 2025 by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. Its first offering, Google Cloud's Gemini for Government, is authorized for unclassified information and is available to more than 3 million military and civilian personnel. The platform passed 1 million unique users in just over a month. Access, however, is not the same as fluency. "AI transformation isn't learned from a slide deck — Airmen have to interact with the technology directly," said Josh Marcuse, director of defense strategy at Google Public Sector. "Practical workshops like this at Tinker are critical because they give personnel the real-world familiarity they need to apply tools like GenAI.mil to their daily missions." The session that drew the sharpest questions concerned the use of AI agents. These are narrow, task-specific assistants a user can build in plain English, no code required. Facilitators demonstrated how a service member could stand up an agent grounded in a single authoritative source: a dress and appearance instruction, for example, or the recently updated physical fitness standards. The implications scale quickly. A supervisor fielding a uniform question may page through a lengthy instruction and still land on an interpretation that differs from the squadron next door. An agent grounded in that document will ideally return a sourced answer in seconds, and that same answer can become consistent across the force. Multiply that across travel vouchers, award packages, performance reports and maintenance data calls, and recovered hours stop being an individual convenience and become an institutional one. Instructors were direct that the tools augment judgment, not replace it: members remain accountable for verifying outputs, and commanders retain decision authority. For 2nd Lt. Ryland Brown, Financial Management and Budget Flight commander with the 72nd Comptroller Squadron, the draw was straightforward. "I wanted to get into the workshop to learn how to run these AI agents efficiently, get my daily tasks done faster, and buy myself some serious time back in the day," Brown said. What landed hardest was the lesson on Gemini Notebook, a research assistant that grounds its answers in documents the user supplies and cites back to the source. "Having an assistant that talks back to you and explains things in layman's terms is a game changer for getting fast, simple answers," Brown said. The workshop maps onto the Department of the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Strategy, which names AI literacy across the total force as a foundational building block and commits the DAF to partnerships with frontier AI laboratories. It sets a mission area for enterprise optimization and workforce augmentation: cognitive assistance for all personnel, freeing human capital for higher-value work. "The foundation of our national security rests on our ability to innovate faster than those who seek to challenge us," Harris said. "Integrating AI empowers our Airmen and civilian workforce to move beyond routine tasks and focus on complex, strategic problem-solving. This unwavering commitment to emerging technology is how we secure our competitive advantage and build the resilient force needed for modern warfare."

• Date Taken: 08.05.2026
• Date Posted: 08.11.2026 17:09
• Story ID: 572155
• Location: OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA, US