US Army Drafts AI To Combat Recruitment Shortfall

Plagued by recruiting shortfalls, the US Army is turning to AI to help it sift through the chaff for fresh recruits.

Speaking at a webinar hosted by the Association of the United States Army, Major General Johnny Davis, Commanding General of US Army Recruiting Command, shared a tool, dubbed "Recruit 360," that the Army has been testing for the past couple of months in five unnamed cities. 

"It's changing the way we do business and the way our recruiters connect," Davis said.

According to reports of the discussion (a recording is not available at the time of reporting), Recruit 360 has the ability to comb through more than 30 million applicant files using 1,700 different variables to generate prospect lists limited to people AI has identified as having potential interest in joining the service. 

Davis said the goal is to get recruiters away from having to cold-call random 18-year-olds (which is how this vulture ended up in the Army), and toward spending time with better prospects - just like your average AI-enabled CRM platform. 

The US military has a well-established recruiting problem, with enlistment numbers having dropped precipitously in recent years. Last year, the Army, Navy and Air Force had a collective of 41,000 recruits short - and nearly half of that shortfall was the Army's. 

To make matters worse, the DoD estimated [PDF] in 2020 that fewer than a quarter of Americans of recruitment age were eligible for service. Weight, drug abuse, mental and physical issues, aptitude, and conduct were all cited as reasons why 77 percent of people aged 17 to 24 were disqualified, and a whopping 44 percent were ineligible for multiple reasons. 

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US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said last year that she hoped AI could assist in addressing the Army's recruiting challenges.

"As we look to new ways to improve our recruiting enterprise, there may be ways artificial intelligence can help us, identify quality leads for prospects in ways that human beings are not as skilled to do," Wormuth told the media in June 2023. 

But the specifics of the Army Recruiting Command's new toy are scarce - there's no mention of the program online outside of Davis' discussion yesterday. Questions to the US Army Recruiting Command about the program have gone unanswered. 

Of particular interest is where the US Army is getting its data on potential recruits from - whether it's data combed from social media and the public internet, or if it only pertains to people who've shown interest in enlisting in the first place, isn't clear.®