PLAYBOOK ATLASPlaybook Atlas

Aerospace & Defense

AI in aerospace & defense: explore 32 applications.

Turn maintenance records, imagery and engineering evidence into reviewable decisions.

Explore aircraft maintenance, imagery analysis and engineering support, with the operator, mission context and permitted actions defined for each workflow.

Plan your first AI move See the 32 applications

Where the 32 applications sit

Explore the domains
  1. 17Defense Intelligence and Analysis
  2. 8Research and Development
  3. 7Operations and Maintenance
  4. 5Strategic Planning and Management
  5. 3Supply Chain Management

01Why AI now

Why aerospace & defense is moving on AI, in three figures.

Each figure links to its source.

  1. Military AI market: $38.8B by 2028

    MarketsandMarkets projected growth from $9.2 billion in 2023 to $38.8 billion in 2028.

    Source: Military Embedded Systems

  2. 81% of A&D respondents use or plan AI/ML

    A Deloitte survey found that 81% of aerospace and defense respondents already use or plan to use artificial intelligence and machine learning technology.

    Source: Deloitte Insights

  3. Aerospace AI skill demand: 30.8% CAGR to 2028

    Deloitte forecasts demand for AI skills in U.S. aerospace product and parts manufacturing job postings will grow at a 30.8% CAGR from 2024 through 2028.

    Source: Deloitte Insights

How to evaluate a first project

Start with a bounded evidence task such as finding a maintenance discrepancy or reviewing an image detection. Compare outputs with qualified reviewers and document missed findings, false alerts and operating conditions. Aircraft release and mission execution require their own authorized processes and validation.

02Capability map

Where aerospace & defense puts AI to work, domain by domain.

Pick a domain to see its applications. Each one opens a full report.

Inside Defense Intelligence and Analysis

Applications in Defense Intelligence and Analysis

What the use cases ask AI to do

Share of the aerospace & defense use cases, by the kind of work the AI does.

  1. Reasoning

    Analyzes, predicts and decides: scoring, forecasting, classifying.

    45%

  2. Generation

    Creates: text, images, code and other content.

    29%

  3. Agentic

    Acts: plans, uses tools and completes multi-step tasks.

    14%

  4. Perception

    Sees, hears and reads: documents, images, audio and video.

    13%

Under 1% each: optimization.

03Workflow ideas

Ways AI could change the work, in aerospace & defense.

Atlas groups these applications by the changes they propose to a workflow. These preliminary classifications help you explore ideas; each application still needs a review of its sources and operating requirements.

Workflow categories in this catalog

Share of the 24 applications assigned a category.

How to evaluate an application

  1. Start with a bounded task

    Identify the inputs, the person responsible, and the decision or output the workflow must produce.

  2. Check the support for each method

    Look for source-backed details about the specific implementation, including its limits and human review.

  3. Measure the pilot

    Record the current baseline, agree on acceptance criteria, and test on representative cases before expanding.

Explore applications

04What gets built

The approaches aerospace & defense uses most, and when to skip them.

Knowing when not to use one matters as much as knowing when to.

  1. 01 · 4 applications

    API-Wrapper

    Thin application layer over a managed AI API.

    API-Wrapper, in depth

  2. 02 · 4 applications

    Computer-Vision

    AI pattern for interpreting and acting on images and video data.

    Use it when

    • When you need to automate or augment tasks that currently rely on human visual inspection (e.g., quality control, surveillance).
    • When visual information (images, video, documents) is the primary or richest source of signal for the problem.
    • When real-time or near-real-time decisions based on camera feeds are required (e.g., robotics, autonomous systems, safety monitoring).

    Skip it when

    • When the problem can be solved more simply and robustly with non-visual sensors or structured data (e.g., barcodes, RFID, logs).
    • When you lack access to sufficient, representative visual data and cannot feasibly collect or label it.
    • When privacy, legal, or ethical constraints prohibit capturing or processing the necessary images or video.
    Computer-Vision, in depth

  3. 03 · 4 applications

    Simulation-Optimization

    Simulation-Optimization combines computational simulation models with optimization algorithms to find optimal decisions under uncertainty and complex constraints. It runs many simulation scenarios to evaluate candidate solutions, using techniques like genetic algorithms, Bayesian optimization, or reinforcement learning.

    Simulation-Optimization, in depth

05The applications

32 aerospace & defense applications, each with a full report.

The widest first, by the number of use cases each covers. Every report shows what changed, how it works, who has done it and what can go wrong.

  1. Geospatial Object Detection TrackerAI-powered object detection models analyze multi-source satellite, aerial, and SAR imagery to identify, classify, and track military and maritime assets in real time. By automating wide-area monitoring, change detection, and dark or disguised vessel discovery, it delivers faster, more accurate geospatial intelligence. Defense organizations gain earlier threat warning, improved mission planning, and more efficient use of ISR and analyst resources.Manual → Vision23 use cases
  2. Geospatial Threat Fusion MonitorThis AI solution applies AI to satellite and geospatial data to automatically detect military assets, maritime threats, gray-zone activity, and environmental risks in near real time. By combining onboard edge processing, multi-sensor fusion, and specialized defense analytics, it turns raw Earth observation data into actionable intelligence for targeting, surveillance, and situational awareness. The result is faster decision-making, improved mission effectiveness, and more efficient use of defense ISR resources.Computer Vision15 use cases
  3. Autonomous Combat Drone Operations WorkflowsThis application area focuses on using autonomous and semi-autonomous unmanned systems to conduct combat and force-protection missions in the air and around critical assets. It covers mission planning, real-time navigation, target detection and tracking, engagement decision support, and coordinated behavior across multiple drones and defensive platforms, including high‑energy laser systems. The core idea is to offload time‑critical sensing, decision-making, and engagement tasks from human operators to software agents that can respond in milliseconds and manage far more complexity than a human crew. It matters because modern battlefields feature dense, fast-moving threats such as drone swarms, cruise missiles, and contested airspace that overwhelm traditional manned platforms and manual command-and-control processes. Autonomous combat drone operations enable militaries to protect ships and bases from low-cost massed attacks, project power without exposing pilots to extreme risk, and execute distributed, survivable strike and surveillance missions at lower marginal cost. By coordinating large numbers of expendable or attritable drones and integrating them with defensive systems like high‑energy lasers, forces can achieve higher resilience, faster reaction times, and greater mission effectiveness in highly contested environments.Expert → AI14 use cases
  4. Aerospace Predictive Maintenance WorkflowsHelp reliability engineers prioritize aircraft maintenance investigations using fault messages, component histories and operating conditions. Show the affected tail or component, evidence window, uncertainty and applicable maintenance reference. Licensed maintenance personnel approve inspections, work orders and return-to-service decisions.Time-Series Anomaly Detection13 use cases
  5. Aircraft Structural Fatigue AssessmentBuild a reproducible structural fatigue reference, evaluate bounded learned approximations and keep engineering assessments tied to the correct materials, loads and component revisions.Domain & Workflow Intelligence12 use cases
  6. Defense Intelligence Decision Support WorkflowsDefense Intelligence Decision Support refers to systems that continuously ingest, fuse, and analyze vast volumes of military, aerospace, and market data to guide strategic and operational decisions. These applications pull from heterogeneous sources—sensor feeds, satellite imagery, cyber telemetry, open‑source intelligence, budgets, tenders, patents, R&D pipelines, and industry news—to produce coherent insights for planners, commanders, and senior executives. Instead of analysts manually reading reports and stitching together fragmented information, the system surfaces key signals, trends, and scenarios relevant to force design, R&D priorities, procurement, and airspace/operations management. This application matters because modern aerospace and defense environments are data‑saturated and time‑compressed. Threats evolve quickly across air, space, cyber, and unmanned systems, while budgets and industrial capacity are constrained. Intelligence and strategy teams must understand where technologies like drones and AI are heading, how competitors are investing, and how to configure airspace, fleets, and missions for both effectiveness and sustainability. By automating triage, correlation, and first‑pass analysis, these decision support systems expand the effective capacity of scarce analysts, enable faster and more informed strategic choices, and improve situational awareness from the boardroom to the battlespace.Silo → Int8 use cases
All 32 applications, A to Z

Work with us

The catalog shows what is possible. A sprint decides what you should fund.

Reading every report still leaves the hardest question open: which move is worth funding first, here, given your constraints. That is the sprint: two weeks, fixed scope, and a candid answer either way.

Book a 30-minute callHow the sprint works

Two weeks Fixed scope A candid fit-or-no-fit answer

  1. 01

    Three ranked opportunities

    A decision-ready shortlist scored against value, feasibility, evidence, risk, and time to proof.

  2. 02

    One pilot-ready workflow

    A bounded operating design with actors, handoffs, data needs, controls, and success measures.

  3. 03

    A defensible 90-day plan

    Build-versus-buy guidance, ROI assumptions, risk treatment, sequencing, and executive decisions.

06Rules & standards

Rules and standards to check, with their scope and sources.

Selected US and EU references for these workflows. Applicability depends on jurisdiction, organization, data and intended use. The planning notes are Atlas editorial guidance; they are not official implementation-time estimates or an exhaustive list of obligations.

  1. International Traffic in Arms Regulations

    Law or regulation

    United States · covered defense articles, services and technical data

    ITAR controls apply according to the article, service, technical data and transaction. Using an AI vendor does not remove export-control responsibilities; not all aerospace data is ITAR-controlled.

    eCFR: 22 CFR Part 120, purpose and definitions

    Source checked

    Project planning note

    Classify technical data and review vendor access, transfers and permitted processing before uploading it.

  2. Airborne software assurance · AC 20-115D

    Agency guidance

    United States · applicable aircraft certification projects

    FAA AC 20-115D describes an acceptable means of showing compliance for airborne software, including use of DO-178C. It is not a blanket certification path for every AI component.

    FAA: AC 20-115D

    Source checked

    Project planning note

    Agree the assurance basis and evidence needed for the specific airborne function with the certification team.

Your next step

Find your first move in aerospace & defense.

Ask the workspace which move fits your company. Add your size, systems and constraints, and it works from these 32 applications to a plan your team can act on.

Plan your first AI move

Rather talk it through? Book a 30-minute call