“Supporting both the Air Force and Space Force missions at AFRL is an incredible honor,” Bonnell said in a release Thursday announcing her new roles. “I believe we are entering an ‘Exponential Age,’ where speed, adaptability, and curiosity will be the key tenets to maintain adversarial advantage. I’m excited to work with the amazing scientists, researchers, business and mission leaders at AFRL to leverage technology to rapidly augment our national security.”

As the laboratory’s first-ever CIO, Bonnell will be responsible for developing and executing an information technology strategy for AFRL. Her focus will be “catalyzing the discovery, development, and integration of warfighting technologies for air, space, and cyberspace forces via digital capabilities, IT infrastructure and technological innovation across the lab’s operations and culture,” according to her bio on the organization’s website.

She will also lead AFRL’s new Digital Capabilities Directorate — a virtual “labverse” aiming to streamline the laboratory’s modernization efforts and more quickly transition adoption-ready tech to warfighters. Stood up in March, the organization is looking to leverage techniques used by commercial companies to improve AFRL’s research and business operations.

Before joining AFRL, Bonnell was Google Public Sector’s emerging tech “evangelist,” according to the release. At Google, she helped the Defense Department and other federal agencies adopt new capabilities such as cloud, artificial intelligence and zero-trust cybersecurity strategies.

Prior to Google, she was the chief innovation officer at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where she co-founded the agency’s innovation hub known as the Global Development Lab. She also has experience working in areas of armed conflict with the United Nations.

“[Bonnell] joins AFRL at a critical moment in time, as AFRL accelerates the generation and transition of cutting-edge technologies for our warfighters,” AFRL Commander Brig. Gen. Scott Cain said in a statement. “With her visionary leadership and deep understanding of technology and how it can be harnessed to achieve mission success, she is poised to strengthen the culture of innovation and lead AFRL into a new era of digital capability.”

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The release of ChatGPT has sparked a fiery debate around the potential negative impacts of the large language AI model. Weis says working with partners who operate under ethical AI frameworks will be vital in detecting and reducing unfair biases, which have been known to lack proper data governance.

Weis shared that he took his recent position as managing director for Google Public Sector technology to help the company’s AI development program continue to make informed decisions that will positively impact service men and women in the U.S. armed forces.

“Google has been a leader in AI for a long time,” explained Weis, and the company has approached the technology with a bold and responsible mindset—which I think is very welcome, as compared to some of the other players there.”

He went on to praise the benefits of partnering with Google, a technology leader that “has the ability to move at speed” and encouraged leaders to initiate a conversation in order to understand “how to apply [AI] within the ethical frameworks that Google has [developed], as well as the ethical AI use that the DOD has directed.”

While on-stage, Weis also promoted a collaborative partnership between Google Public Sector and the Expiration Term of Service (ETS) Sponsorship Program that supports service members in the transition from military to civilian life.

“Every year 200,000 men and women leave service and enter back into civilian life. To many of them, this is life changing. Google’s partnership with ETS on a program called Onward Ops brings the tools and magic of Google Workspace to transitioning service members. Now, veterans will have the ability to easily connect with job recruiters, receive resume help, build communities and more in such a pivotal time of their lives. Google is so proud to continue to serve and support our veterans.”

Watch the full conversation with Aaron Weis at DefenseTalks, hosted by DefenseScoop and to learn more about the Onward Ops program, read more from Weis. Also, hear from our government leaders about their moves to Accelerate the Mission with Artificial Intelligence.

This article was written by Scoop News Group, for DefenseScoop, and underwritten by Google for Government.

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Weis joined the organization on Monday as the managing director of technology, reporting to Leigh Palmer, the firm’s vice president.

After nearly four years as Navy CIO, Weis announced in February in a letter to staff that he was leaving to “attend to family,” among other things.

In his absence, Navy Principal Deputy CIO Jane Rathbun has stepped in to serve as acting CIO.

In an interview with DefenseScoop, Weis described what he accomplished during his tenure with the Navy.

“There’s years of work left to do in modernization. But I think we’ve substantially moved the needle,” Weis said. “It’s got momentum, it’s got legs and it’s happened. That is gratifying to see versus early days where when we said we need to modernize because we’re behind. You get pushed back just by saying that. ‘What do you mean we’re behind? Why do you say that?’ I think there’s general awareness now.”

Weis has a wealth of experience working in the private sector — nearly three decades’ worth, including with Axalta Coating Systems, Sensata Technologies and Tyco International.

Google Public Sector was launched last summer with the aim of expanding work with government agencies. CEO Karen Dahut shared with FedScoop in November the standalone company’s vision to gain traction in the federal cloud market and deliver more “choice” to federal partners.

In December, Google was awarded a spot on the Pentagon’s enterprise Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) cloud procurement.

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But as that marketplace has matured, federal agencies have increasingly turned to multicloud arrangements, looking to take advantage of offerings from multiple providers rather than locking themselves into the products of a single vendor.

Recognizing this appetite for more choice in the federal cloud marketplace, Google recently spun off its public sector-focused business line from Google Cloud to launch an independent division focused purely on federal, state and local governments and the education sector that can serve as an alternative, multicloud-friendly provider.

Karen Dahut, a federal technology industry veteran who spent a large part of her recent career leading Booz Allen Hamilton’s defense business, was named the first CEO of Google Public Sector in September.

Now, just more than two weeks into the job, Dahut spoke with FedScoop in an exclusive interview about her vision for delivering more of that choice into the federal marketplace and how Google hopes to inject the innovative DNA it’s known for in the commercial world into the federal government.

Editor’s note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

FedScoop: You’ve been in the CEO role now for roughly two weeks. How are you settling in with Google?

Karen Dahut: I will tell you that Google is such an American, iconic brand that the privilege of being able to take the great work that they’ve done for consumers, for commercial entities, for citizens, and apply that at a global level for federal government, state and local governments, educational institutions, is just, honestly, the privilege of a lifetime. You know, the last 20 years, I’ve been with Booz Allen, and I held a lot of different roles there. And there were two things that became very apparent to me in my 30-plus years in this industry. The first is that the advancements in technology have really demanded a different approach in government. And what I mean by that is, most government leaders find that their data is held captive in these very large, vertically integrated, monolithic systems. And it has less utility to them because they can’t integrate it at a more substantial level. The second thing is that most of our leaders in government, either they do have the experience of working with the ease of use of Google products and solutions or their kids have. And they’re demanding that same ease of use. And so when I thought about this role at [Google Public Sector], I thought, wow, it’s the perfect opportunity to really bring the power and magic of Google engineering into the federal government, because they’re ready for that transformation, and to really help them drive those digital transformations.

FS: You’re very early into your tenure as CEO, but what is your vision for this new organization? What’s the biggest thing you want to achieve as this organization is essentially getting off the ground and up-and-running?

KD: Well, it’s a great question. And I’ve given that a lot of thought, obviously. I mean, yes, I just started, but I had been thinking about this for a while. First things first, Google Cloud, and all of the tools that they have available on Google Cloud … it’s just a brilliant platform, right? It is scaled at planet-level scale. It has remarkable tools that it can leverage: Google Earth, Google Maps, these tools that we have become very accustomed to using. So the first principle of strategy is how do you bring not just cloud, but all of those additional incredibly accessible tools to significant federal, state, local challenges. The state of West Virginia is a good example. They switched from a Microsoft product to Google Workspace … primarily to enhance collaboration, because Workspace is truly a collaborative tool born in the cloud, native to the cloud, and it’s less expensive. They saved $11.5 million by making that switch. Another great example is that the [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] worked with Google to bring in Google Analytics and Google Cloud to help understand the potential impacts of climate change and predict those changes. So I share those examples with you because I think the opportunity for Google Public Sector is to listen to our clients, provide and enhance the choices they have available to them, and solution in partnership with them. Because all of these products that I’m talking about are already scaled tools accessible to the world. And our opportunity is to tailor them for specific use cases for our public sector clients.

FS: It’s no secret that the cloud market in the federal government is very competitive. How do you look to differentiate yourself from those companies that have come to dominate the federal cloud space?

KD: Yeah, it’s a reasonable question. And one, I suspect that I’m going to answer a lot. It’s certainly not a surprise to me or not unknown to me that we were a little bit late to the cloud game in government. And I think what we really want to focus on is, first of all, the government really wants choice. They don’t want to be emboldened to a single provider. So that’s important to understand. We also believe in the power of choice and the power of multicloud. Most government organizations are going to choose different clouds for different applications. We want to be one of those that they consider — we want to provide that choice. And in fact, our Anthos tool and solution really allows governments to switch workloads between different clouds, so you’re not wedded to a single cloud. And that is going to be our approach: to understand that government wants choice. We’re one of those providers, we believe we have some very unique capabilities, to provide them that choice, and then solution with them.

FS: You’ve spent much of your career focused on the defense space. How do you plan to use that experience as a guide in this new role, particularly as the Department of Defense has place great focus on moving to the cloud, namely though the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract and others?

KD: I am super proud to be a Navy veteran and having served. I follow in the footsteps of my father who served for 42 years, and my sister who served, so super proud of that service. I think that for defense specifically, there is so much opportunity to bring the power of data analytics and AI to bear on their big challenges like JADC2, Joint All Domain Command and Control. That is a data challenge. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to many people across the department and in the services and they are looking for ways to integrate that data that gives them better perspective and insight into the world and the threats that they face. And I truly believe that using Google’s products and capabilities, whether it’s Cloud, Maps, Earth, or all of those great capabilities in combination to solve for some of the challenges — not just in defense, but in civil agencies and the like — is super exciting. And I really have a fervent belief that once we can unlock the power of the cloud and the power of data and AI from that cloud, the sky’s the limit in terms of what we can do to support government.

FS: Are there other public sector-specific mission sets or problem sets that come to mind that Google’s solutions could be a good fit for?

KD: I think it’s always instructive to go back to some of the work that we’re doing in commercial because there are direct applications In government. So for example, Ford Motor Co. hired us to use data and AI to predict maintenance. You have probably heard this is a significant issue across the military services — how do they maintain their fleet or their tanks or whatever it may be … We believe we have a solution that can help them easily do that. One of the things that [Google Cloud CEO] Thomas [Kurian] said to me as I was assuming this role is: ‘There is a world of opportunity. Our challenge is going to be to focus in on the top areas where we believe we can, with rapidity, really help government.’ And so I think that’s what I’m going to be focused in on: What are the best use cases that we can solution with clients to bring to bear on their challenges?

FS: With security such a major focus in the federal government right now, particularly with zero trust, how does Google Public Sector plan to make that a key element of its work with agencies?

KD: Google pioneered the idea of zero trust and built the first-ever zero-trust architecture. So we are a cloud provider that has security built in from the outset. And that’s really important. We know that our government clients, and the degree of sensitivity of the data that is housed in that cloud, absolutely has to have assurances around security. And so we fundamentally understand that and have always built that into our products. The second thing that’s really exciting is the acquisition of Mandiant. You know, Kevin Mandia, is a force for good. He built an amazing company that is really based upon understanding the threat landscape, providing true, no-kidding incident response capabilities, has built an incredible threat landscape library and is building a security-as-a-service platform within Google Cloud’s architecture. So the combination of all of those components of security will beautifully serve, I think, all aspects of government, but more importantly, ensure citizens that may be using that cloud or enterprises within government that are using that cloud, that their data, their information is secure.

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With the activation, users will have access to an Army-affiliated email service located at usa.army.mil, which is compatible with Army365, according to Army CIO Raj Iyer.

“The process began earlier this year to identify an alternate email solution for a select group of Army users that don’t require the full enterprise collaboration capabilities of Army365, and to ensure that no Army user will be left without an email solution when Defense Enterprise Email is sunset by” the Defense Information Systems Agency, Iyer said in a LinkedIn post published overnight on Monday. “Very special thanks to DOD CIO Hon. John Sherman who set the vision and strategy for a multi-cloud DoD environment that enabled us to achieve this.”

The effort will be run out of the Army’s Enterprise Cloud Management Agency.

“All remaining users in DEE will be transitioned to Army Google Workspace over the next several days,” Iyer wrote. “We are continuing to explore other user groups within the Army that can benefit from this alternate solution.”

The Army Software Factory will also transition to the new tool, Iyer noted.

Going forward, all new entrants to the Army will receive their Google Workspace account when they get their Common Access Card and will retain their account until they fully transition to their first unit following basic training and Advanced Individual Training. At that point, commanders will decide if they need an Army365 account. That policy applies to active duty, Reserve and National Guard soldiers.

“The government has asked for more choice in cloud vendors who can support its missions, and Google Workspace will equip today’s military with a leading suite of collaboration tools to get their work done,” Will Grannis, CEO of Google Public Sector, said in a blog post. “In the Army, personnel often need to work across remote locations, in challenging environments, with seamless collaboration key to their success. Google Workspace was designed with these challenges in mind and can be deployed quickly across a diverse set of working conditions, locations, jobs, and skill levels.”

The technology will be provided to as many as 250,000 active-duty personnel, according to Grannis.

Google has been working with Accenture Federal Services along with the ECMA to deploy this capability.

Google recently received Impact Level 4 authorization from DOD allowing it to handle controlled unclassified information, which paved the way for this partnership.

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