Artificial intelligence has become an essential tool for Australia’s defence forces, a game-changing capability increasingly deployed by the military and defence industry. As anxiety about AI stretches around the world, accelerated by warnings from AI company leaders, it has become essential for all Australian organisations and particularly the Australian Defence Force to work with trusted partners. Leidos Australia’s people have worked with Defence and the national security community for more than 30 years delivering a range of sovereign high-technology products with ongoing management, sustainment and oversight.
The currently operational Wagardi Mission System, for instance, enables Australian defence analysts to synthesise large volumes of data from multiple sources for search and discovery purposes. Developed, built and maintained by Leidos Australia, the AI-enabled system gives defence force commanders and analysts rapid access to relevant data to inform critical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance decisions.
“AI is intertwined into everything now,” says Louisa Pontonio, leader of Mission Software Systems at Leidos Australia. “It’s part of every conversation. It’s about asking: how do we make things better? How do we use it? Whether it’s an implementation, workforce enablement, or mission-focused innovation, AI is a constant part of the narrative now.”
Project LAND 156, a counter-drone program developed by the Australian Defence Force, uses AI and machine learning to provide analysts with the ability to detect, identify and track small uncrewed aircraft. Leidos Australia was appointed systems integration partner in 2025 to combine the sensors, command-and-control systems and drone defeat technologies into an integrated ADF capability.
Around the world, AI technology is accelerating at speed, slowed only by widespread concern about the potential of AI systems, how they are governed and how security is assured, Ms Pontonio adds. As a long-term and trusted Defence partner, Leidos works to instil confidence in new AI technologies, building guardrails such as sovereign control, and maintaining constant risk assessment, control and monitoring. Having an experienced team and a solid basis in disciplined engineering practices also helps.
With headquarters in the US and about 2000 Australian staff – covering predominantly engineering, security and program management, Leidos Australia has the advantages of both international understanding and research and solid local networks to ensure secure productivity and capability.
‘AI is intertwined into everything now. It’s part of every conversation. It’s about asking: how do we make things better?’
– Louisa Pontonio, leader of Mission Software Systems at Leidos Australia
New AI standards are expected in Australia in 2027, launched by the incoming Office of AI. As the AI upheaval continues across the public and private sectors, the essential question remains simple: How AI can be deployed safely, securely and on a national scale? Leidos Australia uses the advanced technology of AI to provide mission value, with capability in sensitive environments, where cyber risk, data protection and operational assurance are essential.
Human oversight of AI-enabled operations is considered critical, Ms Pontonio says. “The human in the loop is without question. We’re investing in our workforce, which is changing with the introduction of AI; we become more AI-enabled mission experts. We’re going to have a lot more productivity and capability; the ability to consume and understand more data, and essentially provide that decision advantage is what we need in Defence.”
Leidos Australia approaches AI with caution, curiosity and an innovative mindset, Ms Pontonio says, advancing the technology while constantly incorporating monitoring tools and control guardrails. “We make it safe by design,” she says. The ADF is on a journey of AI enablement, which has to be transparent, explainable, demonstrably secure and in complete alignment with the required operational outcomes and capability, she adds.
AI integration is not limited by its speed or capacity, and it has been adopted across Defence organisations at varying levels, from AI-enabled coding assistance to capacity testing and all the way through to products built with the ability to interact with other systems and data sources throughout their deployment, she says. “Where there is a need, we are seeing a good partnership with our customers around risk management, being able to test things and see how they work, and understand how that might progress us more quickly into understanding where we need to go as a defence force and from a national security perspective.”
Leidos Australia’s Mission Software Centre has been structured to build both capability and ongoing support for customers. “The innovation culture is really important, and we are moving on from experimenting to actually building products capable of being deployed and used – whether supporting knowledge workers, or improving governance and compliance, or supporting intelligence decision-making,” Ms Pontonio says. “We have a large workforce that has worked for decades in government in high-security environments.”
The mission expertise of a Leidos technologist, developer, software engineer or systems architect is aligned with an understanding of high assurance and security, and bringing it all together to provide essential capability and support.
“We build systems and support systems, and we’ve been doing that for decades,” Ms Pontonio says. “We have a highly skilled and cleared workforce, which is in high demand from our customers in a period of critical national significance.”