Written by Tim Gramp, EXPANSIA’s Chief Technology Officer.
Throughout 2025, EXPANSIA has supported programs that share a common purpose: to improve readiness, strengthen decision making, and deliver capability to the warfighter sooner. Across these efforts, it became clear that the challenge is not the lack of digital tools, but it is creating ecosystems where tools actually support mission outcomes while also helping organizations adopt the behaviors needed to use them effectively. We need to operate in a more integrated, data driven, and fast-moving digital landscape in 2026 and beyond.
In this landscape – and regardless of the system, platform, or mission set – success depends on integration that provides clear context, data that can be trusted and used across organizations, digital engineering that supports real workflows, and AI that helps people act with greater speed and confidence.
This observation aligns closely with the changes now underway in defense acquisition. The transition to Portfolio Acquisition Executives, the shift toward commercial and reusable solutions, and the move from the Risk Management Framework to the Cybersecurity Risk Management Construct reflect a common objective. The Department of War wants to field capability sooner and with more operational value, while maintaining the security and rigor required for the mission.
Lessons from 2025
I will dig into the above acquisition sea changes further, but I’ll first expand on the following lessons I’ve seen reinforced in the past year that I believe will be foundational to the Department’s modernization efforts:
- Integration must improve understanding and mission response.
- AI accelerates expert judgment and expands engineering capacity.
- Data maturity determines modernization maturity.
- Digital engineering must help people do their jobs.
Integration must improve understanding and mission response.
Many organizations have assembled strong digital tools, but the real value appears only when those tools share enough data and context to support engineering and operational decisions. Effective integration gives teams a clearer view of the mission problem. Traceability improves. Information becomes more reliable. Manual and custom workflows begin to fade. The aim is not system connectivity for its own sake, but an environment where teams can understand the situation and act with confidence.
AI accelerates expert judgment and expands engineering capacity.
AI has not yet replaced expert judgment, but it consistently helps experts move faster and make more informed decisions. It has highlighted emerging issues, surfaced readiness indicators, and reduced the manual effort required to analyze complex data. There has also been significant progress in agent-based AI, where routine engineering tasks can be performed safely when supported by clear structure and guardrails, what I have referred to as Digital Rules of Engagement. Model Context Protocol (MCP) has already established a clear path to the introduction of intelligent agents into digital engineering workflows. These capabilities expand engineering capacity and allow teams to focus on decisions that carry the greatest mission impact.
Data maturity determines modernization maturity.
Every modernization effort eventually comes down to data. When data is fragmented or poorly governed, teams struggle to adopt new tools, conduct analysis, or maintain a meaningful digital thread. Programs with clear and authoritative sources, reliable pipelines, and consistent semantics operate with far more confidence. Strong data environments enable faster modeling, better analysis, and more dependable mission support. These environments form the quiet foundation that makes modernization sustainable.
Digital engineering must help people do their jobs.
Digital engineering delivers value only when it reduces friction for the workforce. Adoption improves when tools align with real engineering and sustainment workflows and when information flows cleanly across disciplines. Better traceability, simpler configuration practices, and accessible models help teams work with fewer errors and greater efficiency. When digital engineering supports day to day mission needs rather than adding complexity, it becomes a practical advantage.
Supporting the New Acquisition Environment
The acquisition changes now underway reflect a unified direction. Programs are expected to adopt commercial technology more readily, deliver capability more quickly, manage investments at the portfolio level, and maintain continuous security. These shifts align with the observations above and reinforce the importance of environments that can absorb change, share information, and support decisions at operational tempo.
Commercial-First Adoption
Long standing acquisition policy has directed programs to prefer commercial products whenever they can meet mission needs. Title 10 requires the use of commercial items to the maximum extent practicable, and recent updates to the Adaptive Acquisition Framework and Better Buying Power initiatives reinforce this expectation.
However, commercial-first adoption only works when programs can introduce new tools without major redesign or long integration cycles. A key enabler here is the environment and an extensible platform. Programs that follow modular open systems approach (MOSA) principles and use open standards adopt commercial technology with far less friction. These environments avoid unnecessary coupling, reduce the need for custom code, and stay aligned with changing mission needs.
This has been a core tenant at EXPANSIA where our approach to a digital ecosystem has emphasized the use of COTS. Teams move faster when commercial tools fit naturally into shared data structures and predictable interfaces. Once the environment provides the needed context, tools become easier to onboard and easier to sustain. These same conditions position programs to benefit from agentic AI, which depends on reliable semantics and stable interfaces to operate safely. When the foundation is in place, AI can help teams understand data more quickly and reduce the manual work often associated with bringing new tools into the ecosystem.
Accelerate Capability Delivery
While not completely new in 2025, the DoW’s Adaptive Acquisition Framework encourages programs to tailor pathways, reduce unnecessary documentation, and prioritize early, usable capability. In the Marines 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance (CPG) for 2024, General Smith stated, “In the future, we will fight with prototypes.” He continues, “We must build agility into our acquisition processes to increase the velocity of fielding key capabilities as we identify them.” All Services are now issuing similar policy and guidance.
Middle Tier Acquisition authorities and the Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) further support this direction by allowing rapid prototyping and rapid fielding when traditional processes would slow operational benefit. Earlier this year, the Secretary of War made the shift to SWP mandatory to enable speed and agility. Across these policies, the message is consistent. The Department expects programs to deliver capability at a pace that matches evolving mission needs.
As noted with the discussion of COTS, speed depends on environments where tools interoperate, where data is reliable, and where decisions can be made with confidence. Rapid delivery is difficult to achieve with isolated systems or bespoke workflows. Programs advance more quickly when they have portfolio visibility, flexible platforms, and decision support grounded in real operational data. This aligns perfectly with EXPANSIA’s design for the digital ecosystem and our focus on authoritative sources of truth (data) and commercial cloud-based platforms.
Portfolio Acquisition Executives
The move toward Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) reflects the Department’s broader effort to align acquisition authority with mission outcomes rather than with isolated programs. Recent guidance from the Office of the Secretary of War encourages the consolidation of related programs under integrated portfolios, with oversight
structures that mirror how capability is actually delivered and employed. This trend builds on long standing direction to improve unity of effort, reduce duplication, and ensure that investments across systems contribute to a coherent mission effect. By shifting decision authority to portfolio leaders, the Department aims to manage capability as an interconnected whole rather than as a collection of independent efforts.
This shift has practical implications for how programs operate. Portfolio leaders need a clear view of how systems relate to one another, how engineering and sustainment decisions affect performance across the portfolio, and where resources will make the greatest operational impact. Programs must therefore provide data that is consistent, traceable, and comparable across efforts. They need integration patterns that reveal relationships among tools, models, and processes. They also require environments that allow leaders to understand risks and opportunities across multiple programs at once. When these elements are in place, PAEs can make faster, more informed decisions that shape capability in a way that more directly supports mission effectiveness.
Again, I believe EXPANSIA is well-positioned to support this shift. As noted above, integration that improves understanding helps portfolio teams see connections that are often hidden when tools and data remain isolated. Strong data foundations reduce the effort required to compare alternatives or assess risk. Practical digital engineering approaches help sustain alignment as systems evolve. AI-enabled analysis highlights emerging issues and reduces manual effort. These capabilities give PAEs the clarity needed to respond quickly to operational needs and guide resources toward the outcomes that matter.
Cybersecurity Risk Management Construct
The transition from RMF to the Cybersecurity Risk Management Construct (CSRMC) emphasizes continuous security that adapts to the pace of modern delivery. CSRMC encourages automated controls, ongoing assessment, and security practices that operate alongside engineering and deployment rather than after them. This approach reflects the reality of current programs, where systems evolve quickly and security must evolve with them.
The environments we have been helping customers build already reflect many of these principles. Strong data structures, consistent engineering workflows, and modular integration patterns support effective monitoring and control without slowing progress. Cloud and platform engineering practices, combined with secure by design
development, will allow programs to adopt CSRMC in a way that preserves both speed and confidence. And of course, emerging applications of AI can also help surface anomalies and reduce the manual work associated with continuous monitoring.
EXPANSIA's Capability Focus Areas for 2026
The direction of these reforms is clear. Programs will need stronger data foundations, more adaptable platforms, continuous security, and engineering environments that fit how people actually work. These are not abstract goals. They define the technical conditions required for the DoW to deliver capability at the speed and scale the mission now demands. To support these conditions, our capability focus areas for 2026 reflect the disciplines we believe are most essential to helping our clients operate effectively in this emerging acquisition environment.
Data and Decision Support
Data must continue to become more accessible, more trusted, and more tailored to decision making at the portfolio level. We will continue focusing on approaches that help organizations establish clearer data foundations and use that information to support readiness assessments, portfolio decisions, and operational planning.
Cloud and Platform Engineering
Modernization depends on platforms that can evolve without costly redesign. We will continue helping programs adopt modern hosting patterns, streamline delivery processes, and create the conditions for integrating new tools and capabilities when needed. Resilience, modularity and adaptability will be key attributes of client platforms.
Cybersecurity
Security must keep pace with delivery. Our focus is on helping customers embed security into their engineering and delivery workflows in ways that support mission timelines. We will emphasize practices that reduce friction, improve visibility into risk, and enable teams to operate with confidence as systems evolve. This area will be cross-cutting in all our capability focus areas.
Engineering and Digital Modernization
Engineering must evolve to leverage the data and information technologies that can manage the increasing complexity of modern systems and the speed at which they change. We will continue shaping engineering environments that are practical, integrated, and aligned with real mission needs. Our priority is to help organizations mature the digital practices that directly support decisions in acquisition, sustainment, and operational contexts. Digital modernization will leverage the other capability areas to ensure flexibility, scaling, and protection of critical information.
Moving Forward with Purpose
As I look back over another very successful year at EXPANSIA and prepare for the year ahead, the experiences gained across client engagements align closely with the environment the Department is creating. Acquisition is moving faster. Commercial solutions carry more weight. Security is becoming continuous. Engineering is becoming more digital and more distributed. Portfolio level decisions require integrated environments.
EXPANSIA’s goal remains the same. Build solutions that accelerate mission outcomes. Deliver capability with confidence. Support the warfighter with systems that are mission ready now. As CTO, I am committed to ensuring our teams stay aligned to this direction, with national security always at the forefront.