The U.S. Department of Defense says AI usage is scaling rapidly, but a new snapshot shows adoption is still uneven across the force. Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael told policymakers that 80,000 personnel were using commercial AI tools as of December 2025, rising to 1.5 million by this month—yet that still puts participation at roughly 43% of the agency’s workforce. The Pentagon’s push follows broader government momentum, including more than 3,600 active or planned AI use cases disclosed by the Office of Management and Budget. The same discussion points to ongoing concerns about whether AI outputs are reliable and whether workarounds from ad-hoc tool purchasing are outpacing governance. For higher education, the DoD framing underscores what many campuses are learning: scaling tools is not the same as scaling controls, training, and accountability—especially when AI is integrated into mission-critical workflows.