WARP Act of 2026

Key Points

• The bill requires the Secretary of Defense to conduct a sweeping assessment of how AI adoption affects military members' ability to maintain critical skills. The goal is to make sure troops can still operate effectively if AI systems fail, are hacked, or become unavailable during combat.
• The military must identify specific jobs where soldiers are most at risk of losing hard-to-recover skills because they rely too heavily on AI. The assessment looks at risks like overreliance, misplaced confidence in AI outputs, and reduced situational awareness.
• Researchers will run controlled experiments and simulations comparing how military personnel perform with and without AI, including longitudinal studies tracking skill decline over time and how long it takes to recover baseline abilities.
• A senior official must be designated to lead the effort, coordinating across military branches and defense agencies. The assessment must begin no later than August 1, 2027.
• Congress will receive two reports: an initial report within one year of enactment covering early findings and recommendations, and a more detailed longitudinal study report within three years with measured skill retention and atrophy rates across different military jobs.