The NAVAIR Cost & Scheduling Analysis Department recently hosted its first "Promptathon," a two-day hackathon-style event where 10 teams used AI to develop innovative solutions to solve complex operational challenges and bottlenecks. 

The DoN and DoW are rapidly integrating AI into daily acquisition and sustainment operations. AI is a digital force multiplier that can enhance workforce skills, increase speed and deliver a decisive warfighting advantage to the fleet. 

The Promptathon, organized by Kierra Shay, the department's digital transformation lead, put that vision into practice. 

"The benefit of AI is how rapidly you can prototype different solutions," Shay explained. "We decided, what if we just did two straight days, hackathon-style?" 

The result was an intensive burst of innovation that was eye-opening for many participants. Teams identified real operational problems and developed AI-driven tools to tackle them, revealing the sheer power of this technology to attendees. 

"I had no idea how powerful AI has gotten," said Mitchell MacAdams, an operations research analyst. "Being able to build things like a web interface and tools...I think big picture, it's amazing just how far it's come in the last couple of years and how far it's going to continue to go." 

His team focused on accelerating the traditionally slow contract process. They created an AI “agent” to automate the tedious process of generating cost and schedule data review requirements for a statement of work. By automating that process, NAVAIR can move contracts to industry partners faster. 

Another team tackled a critical, data-heavy task essential for cost estimating: identifying accurate analogies for new aircraft systems. The AI rapidly sifted through extensive historical documentation to find comparable systems, drastically accelerating a tedious and time-consuming research process. 

John Scaparro, the management systems deputy technical warrant holder, called the experience the "art of the possible." His team created a user-friendly web interface to analyze schedule logic quickly, which is vital to ensuring testing and fielding milestones remain on track. "We now work with this ability and see a whole new world; it's on steroids compared to what we used to be able to do," he said. 

NAWCAD AI Lead Rich Ernst, an event adviser, noted the technology had an immediate impact on the mission. He encourages those hesitant to start using AI to simply dive in. 

"As soon as you sit down with it and spend five minutes, you start to see the value," he advised. "Soon, it'll just be applying it to the work environment. And that benefits the workforce and benefits our customers at the end of the day." 

The event proved that with AI, the workforce can unlock creative, scalable solutions that directly translate into greater efficiency, increased speed and improved capability delivery to the fleet.