Defense sector developments for 2025 – AI comes to the aid of the skills shortage, Industry 5.0 brings back the humans, drones take to the water & cybersecurity focus intensifies.
The defense sector is marching down an increasingly digitized path in 2025. AI is revolutionizing maintenance and repair; Industry 5.0 is centering on humans in the manufacturing process and autonomous systems are reshaping naval warfare—and all this means cybersecurity threats grow.
Prediction #1 – Industrial AI applications help to shrink the maintenance skills gap
The defense industry is seeing an influx of new next-gen platforms, as more global defense forces adopt the F-35 and completely new aircraft such as the the B-21 Raider, a more technologically advanced subsonic strategic bomber—bringing the need for a new knowledge base for maintenance.
The workforce numbers are plain to see. According to War on The Rocks, the U.S. Air Force alone is currently short 1,800 maintenance personnel; to help mitigate these issues, Deloitte views 2025 as a pivotal year for defense organizations to consider the role AI technologies could play to address the skills shortage.
Utilizing Industrial AI to enhance human-machine interaction
Optimization is one area where Industrial AI can help defense organizations accomplish more with limited skills resources.
AI can be used to optimize maintenance operations and resources in several ways. By analyzing data, AI can schedule maintenance activities closer to their deadlines, reducing overall maintenance frequency. Additionally, AI can optimize task order within a visit based on prerequisites, available resources, and technician skills, ensuring efficient allocation of labor.
In some cases, AI can even optimize technician assignments to specific tasks, considering factors such as skillset, location, and asset availability. Specialized AI agents can also assist technicians by providing intuitive co-pilot access to complex technical information, aiding in troubleshooting, and suggesting repairs to allow each technician to complete higher volumes of work.
Prediction #2 – The rise of Industry 5.0 brings man and machine together
Defense manufacturing in 2025 will see increasing adoption of the core principles of Industry 5.0—and its humanizing influence on factory processes, from training to the factory floor and even when assets are deployed in the field.
A new reality for defense training and execution in the field
Some schools of research describe a “Meta-Operator” defined as an industrial worker that follows the principles of Industry 5.0 and interacts with Industrial Metaverse applications, and with their surroundings through advanced Extended Reality (XR) devices. This is particularly helpful to simulate complex real-world scenarios in great depth and quicken training times versus accruing that knowledge on the job. Deloitte believes this will help alleviate labor shortages: “with emerging technologies such as extended reality, the industry will likely begin to enhance the training environment and shorten the time it takes to bring employees up to speed.”
The next step of XR broadens into the aftermarket too. Take the example of companies such as BeastCode developing a 3D rendering of in-service Naval ships. When technicians are executing maintenance on the ships, they can visually dive down to the systems and then to the individual part in question via the 3D model to look at it, investigate it, manipulate it, understand how it interfaces with other parts on the ship, and record maintenance directly against it—a way of interacting with the digital twin straight out of Hollywood.
Prediction #3 – Naval re-think as uncrewed systems expose large vessel vulnerabilities
The impact of drones and uncrewed systems on naval warfare is becoming apparent. No longer are multi-billion-dollar aircraft fleets or submarines required to disable ships, but as seen with Ukraine wreaking havoc on the Russian Black Sea fleet with smaller unmanned systems capable of disabling or sinking the Navy’s capital ships.
As a result, the composition of naval vessels is changing, more of the ships being developed in the future will be autonomous or have limited crews based on the capability of automated systems available today. This can mean introducing UAV carriers into fleets, exemplified by recent orders and testing of UAV carriers from Portugal, Türkiye, and the U.K., to launch drone-attacks from sea. Uncrewed systems are also high priority in the US DoD Replicator initiative.
Drones fighting drones at sea – the autonomous battle flipping naval equipment requirements
Size isn’t everything here, as seen with the Portuguese Navy’s planned Multi-purpose Vessel, at just 107 metres in length with a design dominated by a large flight deck and other facilities for UAV and helicopter operations. This can also take the form of even smaller Unmanned Vessels that perform critical maritime operations. For example, IFS customer Austal is working closely with the United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy and was recently awarded a $44 million autonomous design and construction contract for rapid troop and equipment transportation.
But supporting this level of autonomy means being able to collect and analyze vast amounts of data from sensors and other sources and produce actionable insights that improve mission success—especially as fleets will comprise a blend of conventional ships with cheaper, smaller, faster, uncrewed and minimally crewed vessels.
Prediction #4 – Digitalization ramps up cyber defense requirements
With increasingly digitized assets come tightened digital compliance requirements across the defense industrial base—and cybersecurity is top of mind for defense departments. In October 2024, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Program Final Rule was published and is expected to come into effect in mid-2025. With Five Eyes nations looking to align to CMMC, organizations in the defense supply chain who have not prioritized cybersecurity run the risk of losing business.
Alongside the CMMC requirements is the need for cloud-based solutions to adhere to Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring. Outside of compliance requirements there is also a need to harden digital defenses against Intellectual Property (IP) theft from other states—which can erode hard won technological gains on the battlefield.
To ensure this success, defense organizations need to make sure they are supported by software architecture that adheres to military regulations now and into the future—and defense-capable cloud or hybrid enterprise solutions with in-built CMMC, FedRAMP or ITAR compliance will be key.
