IDF to create new branch for AI and autonomous warfare
The new organization will develop robotic capabilities across land, air and maritime domains, including systems able to operate without human combat teams. It is the latest step in Israel’s broader push to integrate artificial intelligence and autonomy into its military.
The Israel Defense Forces is creating a new branch dedicated to unmanned systems and artificial intelligence, putting autonomous warfare at the center of its military structure as Israel's defense establishment accelerates a broader push into robotics and AI.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the plans for the new “unmanned systems and artificial intelligence” branch were finalized last week and that it will be inaugurated by early December.
The move comes after the Defense Ministry itself established an AI and Autonomy Administration in January 2025 to lead research, development and force-building in artificial intelligence and autonomous systems across the IDF. The administration operates under the ministry's Directorate of Defense Research and Development and brings together military technological units, researchers, defense companies and startups.
The creation of a dedicated IDF branch therefore represents a further step in turning AI and autonomy from a collection of emerging technologies into an organizational pillar of Israel's military.
“The battlefield is changing at a dizzying pace, and we are changing with it,” Zamir said at a Navy officers' graduation ceremony. “We understand that the future includes unmanned systems, robotics, drones and widespread use of artificial intelligence.”
The new branch will be responsible for the rapidly developing field and will oversee robotic capabilities across the air, land and maritime domains.
But the significance of the announcement goes beyond the development of more drones. Zamir described a future in which unmanned systems become part of the fighting force itself, operating alongside manned combat teams or conducting missions independently.
“The capabilities that unmanned systems will provide will enable them to operate alongside manned combat teams or in independent missions,” he said. “They will increase operational activity on the battlefield and save human lives.”
That vision is consistent with a direction already laid out by the Defense Ministry. When it established its AI and Autonomy Administration, the ministry said the future battlefield would involve integrated teams of soldiers and autonomous systems operating together.
The ministry has since described the transformation in even more expansive terms. In December 2025, Yaron Sarig, head of its AI and Autonomy PEO, called the ongoing conflict the “first robotics war” and said tens of thousands of autonomous systems had been deployed across the battlefield, ranging from drone swarms to ground robotics. He said the ministry expected robotic capabilities to expand significantly in the coming years.
For the IDF, the next step will be to turn that technological momentum into a dedicated military organization.
The effort will not be confined to the air. Zamir said the military will develop maritime, land and aerial robotic capabilities, while the Navy will incorporate advanced autonomous systems both above and below the sea.
That could eventually give unmanned systems a role across virtually every physical environment in which the military operates, with the technology serving both as an extension of human forces and, in some missions, as an alternative to putting soldiers directly in harm's way.
