Transformation Is a Choice, and We Are Making It: Reflections from the Army WWIGC

The Department of War Inspector General, the Honorable Mr. Moring, identified me at today’s Army Worldwide Inspector General Conference (WWIGC) for developing the Army IG Mentor. He stated that the innovation is exactly what Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wants from the IG Force. I am honored. Recognition from the DoW IG carries weight. The reason he cited the tool is the point of the day. The IG force is being asked to change, and the tools we build have to serve that change.

I am writing these takeaways while they are fresh. The conversations at WWIGC pointed at something larger than any single service or session. Every principal in the room said a version of the same thing.

Transformation Is Now

Mr. Moring opened by framing the choice bluntly. Transformation is a choice. Transformation is now. The IG’s mission is to enhance the mission. He tied the three sentences together with a clear directive: change the perception of the IG office, and remove the weaponization of complaints and reports.

Anyone who has served as an IG understands the perception problem. Units too often see the IG as an inspector who arrives, finds fault, and leaves. Soldiers too often see the IG complaint process as either a black hole or a weapon of last resort. Neither perception serves the force. Mr. Moring’s framing puts the burden on the IG community to fix it. The complaint system exists to surface systemic risk and to protect people. When it becomes a weapon, it loses both functions.

The Gold Standard

The Honorable Ms. Mason, a presidentially nominated SES leader, took the afternoon session. She is a go-getter and does not take crap. She said IGs are the gold standard, and she treated the phrase as an obligation rather than a compliment.

Her breakout on Delegation of Duties was the highlight of my day. This is a topic I raise in nearly every inbrief and outbrief I conduct, because I see the same failure repeated across commands. Senior leaders accept risk in many ways. Inappropriate delegation of duties is one of the most common and least examined.

Ms. Mason’s frame lined up with mine. Some delegations are good. Some go sour. The pact of trust between senior leader and subordinate is real, and trust does not eliminate the requirement to verify. Follow-up on delegated authority protects trust. It is the mechanism that keeps trust intact. A senior leader who delegates and disappears is not delegating; that leader is abandoning the duty.

I appreciated her willingness to name the risk directly. Thank you, ma’am.

Alignment Across the Joint Force

LTG Brady spoke as the proud leader of leaders of IGs not only across the Army but across the force. LTG Lyons, the Air Force IG, was in attendance. Together, the two of them confirmed what has been visible for months. The direction is not service-specific. It is not even DoW-specific. The Executive Branch is moving in lockstep. The VA is moving. The Department of War is moving. Every IG shop is being asked to modernize on the same clock.

Historically, service IGs coordinate but operate on separate rhythms. That is changing. When the DoW IG delivers the message and the senior IGs of two services stand together in the room to reinforce it, the message is deliberate. The force should read it that way.

AI, Policy, and Token Economics

I led breakout discussions on three related topics: the historical timeline of IG use of AI, IG AI policy implementation, and better token economics for AskSage across the Army IG community.

The morning session ran near-perfect. Three of the four senior leaders in the room were engaged, informed, and asking the right questions. We walked through the trajectory of IG AI use, the current policy landscape, and specific proposals for making AskSage sustainable at scale as adoption grows. Token economics matters. If we do not manage cost and usage patterns now, we will hit a wall that slows adoption right when it should be accelerating.

The afternoon session was harder. A National Guard officer who had not attended The Inspector General School (TIGS) pushed back repeatedly. He did not have the baseline to follow the material, which led to critical errors in judgment and to open questions that misdirected the floor. This is a structural observation, not a personal one. If we are going to integrate AI into IG work at pace, the entry point has to be TIGS. Officers who have not been through the schoolhouse cannot participate meaningfully in a policy conversation about how the IG force should use AI. The fix is to get the right people into TIGS, not to slow the conversation.

What I Am Taking Back

Three things.

First, transformation is a directive. Mr. Moring, Ms. Mason, and LTG Brady each said a version of the same thing, and LTG Lyons’s presence in the room signaled the same alignment from the Air Force IG. The IG force is changing, and the leaders who move first will define what the change looks like.

Second, delegation is a leadership discipline. Ms. Mason’s framing is going straight into my next inbrief. Senior leaders who delegate without verification are not extending trust; they are creating exposure.

Third, AI in the IG force needs a shared foundation. AskSage, IG AI policy, and the underlying token economics are technical topics, and the conversation has to start with people who share a common professional baseline. TIGS is that baseline.

The Army IG Mentor was built to serve exactly this moment. I am grateful the DoW IG saw it that way. The work now is to build more of it.