Soldiers don't wait for AI. They build it.

300+ participants. 42 teams. Five days to build the Army's AI future.

WASHINGTON — Two months ago, the Army's first-ever Vantage Edge competition proved that Soldiers, civilians, and technologists across the force could redesign an enterprise platform's landing page in less than 48 hours. Last week, Vantage Edge 2 asked them to do something harder: build artificial intelligence workflows that solve real Army problems. More than 300 participants joined the event, with 42 teams stepping into the arena to compete, proving once again that the Army's best solutions don't always come from the top down. More often than not, they come from those closest to the problem.

From April 6–10, the Vantage Edge 2: AIP (Artificial Intelligence Platform) event brought together participants from across the force for a five-day virtual competition, tasking them with building production-ready AI workflows on Vantage, one of the Army's premier enterprise data and analytics platforms. Participants joined from installations and duty stations spanning seven time zones, representing Active Duty, National Guard, Reserve, and civilian components.

The mission was clear: leverage Palantir's advanced AIP tooling on Vantage — including AIP Logic, AIP Analyst, AI Forward Deployed Engineers and Pipeline Builder — to deliver AI-driven solutions that automate manual processes and increase efficiency across Army operations.

They delivered.

Scaling Success

The first Vantage Edge, held February 11–13, drew more than 200 participants and 16 teams to crowdsource a redesigned Vantage homepage. That competition's winning solutions have completed beta testing, and the new hybrid homepage is on track to go live by the end of the month. But the organizing team, led by Maj. Zak Daker, AI advisor to the Army's vice chief of staff, always envisioned Vantage Edge as a series, with each iteration pushing deeper into the platform's most advanced capabilities.

Vantage Edge 2 represented nearly a threefold increase in competing teams and a fundamental shift in complexity, moving from user interface design to enterprise AI development. Few large organizations have figured out how to take AI from pilot projects to real-world impact at scale, and the Army is no exception. Vantage Edge 2 bet that the people already serving in that force could lead the way.

"The first Vantage Edge proved the concept. For Vantage Edge 2, we pointed that same energy at one of the hardest problem sets in the Army right now: how do we operationalize AI?" said Daker. "The answer, once again, came from our formations."

Learn, Build, Compete

The week was deliberately structured to balance education, hands-on development, and competition.

Monday opened with remarks from Dr. Markowitz, the Army's deputy CIO and chief data and analytics officer, and Palantir leadership, setting the strategic context for the week. Following opening remarks, the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday were dedicated to classes and technical training, equipping competitors with the knowledge needed to build winning solutions. Participants received live demonstrations of Foundry ONYX, deep-dive sessions on building with AIP, training on AIP Evaluations, and walkthroughs of the full suite of AIP tools, including AIP Logic, AIP Analyst and AI Forward Deployed Engineers. Palantir engineers held open office hours throughout the week, fielding questions and helping teams sharpen their concepts before development began.

Wednesday and Thursday were Developer Days. For 48 hours, teams built, iterated and stress-tested their AI workflows while Palantir engineers provided real-time technical support via chat forums and live sessions. The energy across the virtual Teams channel was palpable, with teams spanning multiple time zones collaborating, troubleshooting and pushing the limits of what they thought possible on the platform. Project submissions closed Thursday at 3 p.m. EDT.

Friday was Competition Day. Teams presented their workflows to two expert judging panels composed of members from HQDA CIO, Palantir, the Army Software Factory and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Each presentation included a live demonstration followed by a rigorous question-and-answer session.

The competition rubric, scored across 100 points, evaluated mission impact and value (30 points), technical depth and AIP sophistication (25 points), innovation and ambition (25 points), execution quality and completeness (15 points) and a bonus category for human-AI collaboration (5 points). Technical depth was measured against a five-level AIP maturity framework ranging from basic data processing at level 0 through fully automated AI action at level 4. The standard was clear: the Army was looking for solutions that go far beyond simple chatbots.

Competitors tackled problems spanning the full breadth of Army operations, from AI-powered legal assistance tools for commanders navigating UCMJ actions, to maintenance optimizers leveraging weapons systems data, to automated S1 workflows for evaluation forecasting, to AI-enabled crew roster optimization for mechanized units.

The Winners

After deliberation across both judging panels, six categories of excellence were recognized:

First Place: Team CC Blue Ghost

Joshua Wigley, Oscar Davila, John Smith, Manuel Vasquez, Hector Medrano, Matthew LaPointe and Carla Bolton earned the competition's top honor, delivering an AI workflow that distinguished itself across every dimension of the rubric and set the standard for what AIP-enabled solutions on Vantage can achieve. Managing Army Aviation depot-level maintenance, the team built a fully integrated dashboard that consolidates all aspects of their maintenance programs from material and labor to budget and execution. Their efforts have produced a tremendous return on time and transformed operations — Corpus Christi Army Depot is in great hands!

Second Place: Team MDC-PAC ODT

CW2 Zachary Zayac, Lt. Col Janice Blane, Maj. Welvin Lucero, Michael Thornton, Maj. Kyle Parker, Marcus Dreek and CW3 Jaime Castro earned the silver with a polished, operationally relevant workflow demonstrating strong technical depth and clear scalability across Army formations. The JBLM team synchronized a major G3/S3 challenge that every Division can relate to: integrating all land, ammo, training, and readiness systems into a centralized dashboard to accurately forecast, plan, and execute from. Truly remarkable work.

Third Place: Team Octavio

Maj. Phillip Brown, out of Fort Leavenworth’s Mission Command Training Program, delivered a compelling solution that balanced ambition with execution, earning recognition for both its innovative approach and practical applicability to real-world operations. He streamlined how we could approach Warfighter Exercises, from producing a public library of lessons learned and trends to real-time observer coach/trainers grading and sharing of information, and he did this by himself.

Technical Excellence Award: Team USACE Real Estate

The team that showcased the most impressive technical implementation or advanced use of multiple AIP tooling, demonstrating mastery of tools and techniques. Katherine Carver, Kelsey Ciarrocca and Carlos Avila-Mata from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers demonstrated exceptional AIP sophistication, showcasing advanced orchestration of multiple AIP tools and pushing the boundaries of what participants thought achievable on the platform. Their mission is the largest Army real estate acquisition in decades, over 4,200 tracts of land along the southern border. Issue: outdated and bureaucratic processes that bottleneck the execution. Insert Katherine, Kelsey and Carlos to make it happen. Their workflow took a multiple-week process down to a couple of days; an average of 87% of time saving per land tract! Now that’s ROI.

Innovative Ingenuity Award: Team MGD Vantage Training

The team that demonstrated the most creative and unconventional thinking in their approach to solving challenges, highlighting solutions that are daringly outside-the-box or introduce novel ideas. Maj. Daniel Bader from Army Test and Evaluation Command earned this award for a creative application of AIP tooling that approached its problem set from an angle no other team had considered, embodying the entrepreneurial spirit at the heart of Vantage Edge. How do we train our people on these new platforms like Vantage? Despite our death-by-PowerPoint roots, Dan implored us to adopt a novel gamification approach. He built “Jurassic Park,” a dinosaur-based simulation to help train students to fully utilize Vantage's tools and capabilities. Yet again, ATEC is producing pure gold.

Future Force Potential Award: Team 25th Combat Aviation Brigade

The team whose solution, while in early stages of design and development, shows exceptional promise for scalability and the ability to create meaningful impact on Army operations with further refinement and resources. CW2 Josef Larareo earned this award for a forward-looking concept that pointed toward transformative AI-enabled capabilities for Army aviation operations at the tactical edge, a vision of what is possible when Soldiers at the point of need are empowered to build with enterprise AI tools. In short order, Joe managed to pull in all relevant aviation doctrine and fuse it with supply data sources to create an initial smart tool for maintenance workflows. Tremendous potential out of the Pacific-well done, Joe.

In a lighter moment that captured the event's camaraderie, MAJ Michael Smith took home the Best Costume Award, a reminder that even the Army's most technically demanding competitions leave room for esprit de corps. It still fits Mike!

The Partnership That Made It Possible

Vantage Edge 2 was organized by the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army in close collaboration with the Army Chief Information Office, Palantir Technologies and the Army Software Factory.

The event's success owed much to the partnership with Palantir's Korie Wagner and Alex Fleischner, who were critical in planning and executing every phase of the competition. From shaping the technical architecture and rubric during initial concept development in February, to coordinating Palantir's engineering support throughout the week, to Fleischner delivering the closing remarks on Competition Day. The two ensured that every participant had access to the tools, training, and real-time technical assistance needed to turn ambitious AI concepts into working solutions.

"Korie and Alex were with us from the initial concept through the final awards ceremony," said Daker. "They didn't just support the event; they were instrumental in building it. That kind of partnership is what makes Vantage Edge possible."

Their efforts reflected a broader commitment from Palantir's Vantage team to invest in the Army's growing AI talent base, a commitment that extended to every Palantir engineer who staffed office hours, answered questions in chat forums, and taught classes throughout the week.

A Movement, Not a Moment

In two iterations over two months, Vantage Edge has engaged more than 500 participants and 58 competing teams. With each event, the community of people who understand not just what Vantage can do, but what they can build on it, continues to grow.

The results are already tangible. Winning AI workflows from Vantage Edge 2 are live on the platform today and ready to be scaled across the force. The redesigned Vantage homepage from the original Vantage Edge competition is on track to go live by the end of the month. In less than 90 days, two competitions have produced real solutions now being fielded on an enterprise platform serving the entire Army.

The growth trajectory speaks for itself: 16 teams in February, 42 teams in April. A user interface challenge followed by an enterprise AI competition. The organizing team is already planning future iterations to expand the competition's scope and deepen the Army's bench of AI-capable Soldiers and civilians — lookout for Vantage Edge 3.

As the Army accelerates its adoption of artificial intelligence across every warfighting function, Vantage Edge 2 sends a clear signal: the future of Army AI will not be built solely in labs or by contractors. It will be built by Soldiers, civilians, infantrymen and aviators, engineers and administrators, logisticians and analysts, who refuse to accept inefficiency and who, when given the tools and the opportunity, will build something better.

Every Soldier is a potential innovator. Vantage Edge 2 proved it — again.

For more information about Vantage and future events, visit the Vantage Edge Hub on the Soldier-redesigned Homepage.