The Army is gathering insights from its initial transforming in contact brigades and adjusting in real time to shape the future of the force, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said during Defense One’s 2025 State of Defense series.

“In the Army, we like to say they’re only lessons observed, they're not lessons learned until we actually change how we train and operate, change how we organize, and then change how we buy things,” he said. “I think that that's the most exciting thing, is that we're seeing changes in weeks and months, rather than waiting years to advance.”

Following experimentation with each transforming in contact brigade, the Army is looking to tailor its equipment investments to the environments that soldiers will operate in.

“What we're going to buy for our formations, they are going to be a little bit different,” George said. “A good example is, we’ve got units that operate up in the Arctic. You need different kit when you're going to operate up in the Arctic. Drones work differently up there. The network works differently up there. Same thing in the Pacific.”

As it modernizes, the service is in the process of reviewing “everything across the Army” and making “tough choices” as it prioritizes “war-winning capabilities,” George said.

As technology advances and excess is removed, future formations will be increasingly mobile. “Where we typically had big satellite dishes, server stacks and all kinds of extra vehicles, we're now talking about a commander that's on the field and a staff that is basically operating off of tablets and software-defined radios and very simple kit, which will make us much more mobile, much more lower signature,” he said.

Units across the Army are eager to get involved with the transforming in contact initiative, George said. “The feedback that I generally get from everybody when I'm out there is they want their unit to be a part of this, and they want to go faster. I think that's one of the big lessons that we're learning,” he said. “Our soldiers are ready for it, and they're very adaptive.”