Strategy for AI, autonomy and national security
Propelling technology. Humans still matter.
Omnia Tech is the consultancy of Tucker Hamilton, the fighter test pilot who became the Air Force’s first Chief of AI Test and Operations. It gives companies building autonomy a senior strategy seat, held by someone who has flown beside the machines.
01The work
A chief strategy seat, without the hire.
Most companies building for national security do not need another deck. They need someone senior in the room on the days that decide things, who knows how government tests a new technology and how it buys one. Omnia Tech takes that seat on retainer and works alongside the founders.
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Finding the right door
Test organizations, innovation units and program offices do not move at the same speed. Knowing which one is funded this year, and who inside it cares about your problem, is where an engagement usually starts.
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Ready for the room
An introduction only helps a team that can answer the hard questions that follow it. We rehearse those questions first, so the meeting is spent on the technology.
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Tested like it matters
Whether anyone trusts an autonomous system comes down to how it was tested. Tucker ran AI test and operations for the Air Force and brings that discipline to a product roadmap.
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Small against the incumbents
A small team answers faster and carries less bureaucracy than the companies it bids against. The strategy is to make that the reason a program chooses you.
02The question
“How do humans perform when the margin for error disappears?”
It used to be a cockpit question. Now that AI shares decisions with people in business and in government, it belongs to every leader, and it is the one Omnia Tech is hired to help answer. We take on a small number of companies at a time.
- Leadership in high-consequence environments
- Decision-making under pressure
- Trust and accountability in autonomous systems
- Organizational performance in the face of technological disruption
03The perspective
The wave is upon us.
What language models have shown so far is the small part. AI joined to physical machines is going to change construction, firefighting and the way governments work. Tucker has watched the early version of it from closer than almost anyone: he flew on the wing of a high-performance uncrewed aircraft the first time an AI agent took control of one in flight.
“The challenge facing leaders is no longer whether to adopt advanced technology, but how to do so while preserving judgment, trust, and accountability.”
Tucker’s work sits at that point, inside the companies building these systems and not in the commentary about them.
“As our world races forward into an era defined by AI, autonomy, and renewed great power competition, one truth remains…”
Humans still matter.
AI now shares decision space with people. The work is adopting it while judgment, trust and accountability stay with a person.
04The person
Fighter pilot by trade. Test pilot by accident.
Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton is a high school dropout turned fighter test pilot. Over more than twenty years in the Air Force he flew more than 30 aircraft, including all three variants of the F-35, and commanded the largest flight test organization in modern aviation.
He helped establish the AI Accelerator that the Department of the Air Force runs with MIT, and served as the Air Force’s first Chief of AI Test and Operations. He wrote Unlocking the Last 20% and hosts the Fighter Pilot Podcast.
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