The effort marks the first time AI has been used to aid the development of a UK defence strategy. 

Oxford Dynamics – a UK-based small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) – revealed on 3 June that its AI software was used to support the delivery of the UK’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR). 

Breaking cover on what had been a quietly kept secret – until after the review was released on 2 June – the company’s Director and Co-Founder, Dr Edward Jackson, announced on LinkedIn that its AVIS (A Very Intelligent System) AI Platform was used to analyse and sort through 8,000 responses from over 1,700 contributors. 

It utilised material from the SDR call for evidence, which was open between 28 August and 30 September 2024. 

AVIS provided “accelerated insight generation while enabling analysts and [the SDR’s] reviewers to focus on higher-order reading and judgment”, Jackson told DSEI UK.  

“AVIS operated in a secure, air-gapped environment and produced fully traceable outputs — every conclusion it delivered could be verified back to its source material. That transparency was key for something as sensitive and high-profile as the SDR”, Jackson explained. 

The system is capable of processing various formats of data, including structured documents, text, video, images and even sensor feeds. 

In response to a question about how the company came to apply AVIS to the SDR, Oxford Dynamics’ Co-Founder, Shefali Sharma, said that “the SDR engagement came through Defence Digital’s existing enterprise agreements, consistent with the MoD’s Digital and Data Strategy.” 

In September 2024, the company became the first SME to secure an enterprise lite agreement with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), designed to give trusted UK technology companies easier access to the defence ecosystem. 

Collaborating to support the UK’s national objectives 

To deliver AVIS’ support of the SDR, Oxford Dynamics worked closely with Palantir, a US prime contractor, who “provided a data integration and infrastructure backbone”, Jackson said. With this in place, the AVIS system was able to provide “high-speed, explainable summarisation, clustering and search over large volumes of unstructured inputs”. 

On the collaboration with Palantir, Jackson reflected upon “a good example of a sovereign SME and a global prime working side-by-side — not in competition, but in complement — to support national objectives.” 

In addition to this partnership, Oxford Dynamics has worked closely with various MoD departments in recent years. These include Commercial X, the Defence Artificial Intelligence Centre (DAIC), the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), and the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA). 

Bridging the ‘valley of death’ 

Sharma explained that “early [MoD] support was critical. Eddie Jackson, myself, and our core team spent many months refining AVIS through hands-on engagement with MoD stakeholders.” 

“DASA grants, DAIC feedback, and Dstl interaction helped bridge the ‘valley of death’ from R&D to operational deployment.” 

Oxford Dynamics' work demonstrates “what can happen when defence backs early innovation with meaningful access”, she added.  

Commenting on the SDR itself, Jackson and Sharma welcomed “the SDR’s commitment to sovereign capability and accelerating innovation. That a UK deep-tech start-up was trusted to support this level of strategic review shows the direction defence is moving — and we’re proud to be part of that momentum.”

This article has been updated to more precisely attribute the comments included.

DSEI Defence News is part of DSEI UK and the broader Clarion Defence portfolio. 
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