Cognition is becoming a focal domain of strategic competition of the twenty-first century battlespace. Within this environment, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a transformative operational technology with strategic significance that extends beyond simple automation or data analytic tools. Perhaps most exemplary of these advanced capabilities are agentic AI (aAI) systems that are being employed to function with increasing autonomy in influence operations to engage the cognitive domain by adaptive narrative generation, predictive analytics, and affecting targets’ emotional states to alter behavioral outcomes. In this way, autonomous aAI-based narrative warfare can be seen to be an emergent, defining feature of contemporary conflict.

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