The war for information, influence, and decision making is paramount on today’s battlefield. Artificial intelligence is no longer a concept of the future; it’s essential for America’s national security and military dominance. 

From SOF Week in Tampa, Florida, Fran Racioppi sat down with retired Green Beret and Co-founder of Accrete AI Government, Bill Wall, to talk about a fight most Americans never see.

Bill is one of the leading voices redefining how we use AI and how our government is deploying it in the protection of America. Bill explains how Accrete’s Argus platform is actively being used to identify foreign ownership and control in U.S. defense supply chains, and how more broadly AI is helping analysts detect narrative warfare and influence campaigns before they spread.

He shared how dual-use technology is shifting the battlefield, why algorithmic warfare is already here, and how Accrete is giving government agencies the tools to scale human insight without losing control. They also talked about the dangers of siloed innovation, the gap between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, and what leadership looks like when you’re building tech that needs to work at speed and at scale.

This episode is about changing how we think about war, technology, and leadership; and what it’s going to take to stay ahead in the next fight.

HIGHLIGHTS

• 0:00 Welcome to SOF Week
• 3:45 Artificial Intelligence Defined
• 6:53 AI in War Fighting
• 9:07 Machine Learning
• 10:51 Drawing the Line with AI
• 14:48 Defining the Next Battlefield
• 18:27 Combatting False Narratives & Misinformation
• 22:03 Public Private Partnerships
• 24:29 Accrete in the Corporate World
• 29:11 Regulating AI
• 31:05 Why Army
• 32:55 Innovation changing SOF
• 37:20 Transition from SOF
• 51:50 Accrete AI’s future

Quotes

• “Artificial intelligence is just using computers and data to think and reason the same way a human would, but just at a much larger scale and speed.” 
• “Anywhere there’s a decisional situation and they’re overwhelmed by the amount of information they have to sort through, artificial intelligence should be there.”
• “Machine learning allows an algorithm or a program to continually absorb new data and learn from that data.” 
• “Artificial intelligence empowers a human.”
• “We’re not engaging in the narrative battle. We don’t even know what’s being said.”
• “We don’t necessarily need the National Intelligence Community to tell us where our enemies are, they’re broadcasting it.”
• “Is artificial intelligence a general category of something that should have a governmental review on it or not?”
• “If you want to know where the next salifist, jihadist, preacher who’s going to lead an uprising in North Africa is, he’s on Youtube.”
• “In our community, there’s this ethos of being prepared for change and being able to take advantage of change as it happens.”
• “You are what you do. That’s how you identify your self worth and who you are.”
• “Something that guys have to think about is what their personal risk profile is.”
• “If you’re a checklist driven person that needs to be told what to do to understand your job, then entrepreneurialism is not for you.”

The Jedburgh Podcast is brought to you by University of Health & Performance, providing our Veterans world-class education and training as fitness and nutrition entrepreneurs.

Our SOF Week 2025 Series is made possible in part by Accrete.ai; solving business’s most complex challenges today through the technology of tomorrow.

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The Jedburgh Podcast and the Jedburgh Media Channel are an official program of The Green Beret Foundation.