Ukraine’s groundbreaking use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the defense sector has rightly attracted worldwide attention, but the country is primed to be a testing ground for more than just AI-powered drone technologies. Uniquely nimble decision-making in the Ukrainian government, combined with cutting-edge AI deployment expertise and a massive citizen need for public services, can provide a model to other advanced economies weighing how to effectively and securely integrate AI to better serve their constituents.
In late 2023, Ukraine’s then-Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov wrote an article for the Atlantic Council explaining Kyiv’s push to balance “innovation and security” in its AI regulation strategy. Fedorov described an approach aimed at initially allowing AI innovation to flourish with mostly voluntary government oversight, before later drafting legislation to harmonize Ukraine’s regulations with those of the European Union as Kyiv proceeded with accession negotiations.
Fedorov is now Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, overseeing what is arguably the most innovative military in the world today. Ukraine’s AI-enabled drones, targeting technology, and counter-UAV capabilities are the envy of many Western militaries. Meanwhile, the country’s Brave1 defense accelerator provides fledgling defense startups with grants, data, and software to develop and scale their products at speed. It is no wonder that European and American officials and defense industry leaders are lining up to partner with Ukraine’s military tech companies.
It is clear that innovation has won out for Fedorov, who has spoken publicly about his ministry’s ambitions to deploy fully autonomous front line defenses. In the United States, debates about autonomous weapons systems have led to major fissures between the US government and AI companies. Ukraine has different priorities and is moving forward with partially autonomous systems to combat a significant manpower disadvantage against an imminent threat to its existence.
Ukraine is also moving quickly to deploy new AI solutions on the home front. In fall 2025, the ministry launched Diia.AI. Built by Ukrainian IT company Kitsoft using Google’s Gemini Flash 2.0 model, Diia.AI is the first AI agent for a national government to provide simple bureaucratic services to citizens. Ukrainians can now receive tax documents and other basics simply by querying Diia.AI, just as one might ask ChatGPT to write up a resume, for example.
Efforts are underway to broaden the array of government services leveraged by AI agents. In January, Fedorov was replaced by his protege Oleksandr Bornyakov as the country’s Acting Minister of Digital Transformation. Bornyakov has since forged ahead with plans to build the “agentic state,” an ecosystem of AI agents to carry out a range of bureaucratic functions.
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Ukraine is leaning into AI for government services for the same reason it has become a world leader in AI-enabled weaponry: The country faces a human capital gap. Many of the most talented Ukrainians have contributed their brains and their bodies to the country’s defense, but with huge security and reconstruction challenges ahead, automating complex systems will be key to both quality government service and unyielding defense. Ukraine’s former deputy minister for digital transformation Valeriya Ionan sums up the need for AI-powered government solutions best: “Agentic systems expand the ability to manage complexity and decision-making at a scale no workforce can match.”
The pressure on Kyiv to simultaneously defend Ukraine from the existential Russian threat and maintain a functioning state means it is more motivated than most countries to get AI deployment right and to do so quickly. Fedorov recently announced that the Ministry of Defense will now rely on AI to process battlefield data and determine which drones it should procure, aiming to maximize effectiveness and minimize the corruption risks that can accompany human-centric procurement processes.
Bornyakov and the Ministry of Digital Transformation will no doubt face growing demand for agentic state services in Ukraine’s reconstruction. For Ukrainians forced to flee the Russian advance and those who have lost their homes, accessing basic services on their smartphones can help recover a semblance of normalcy while reducing strain on the country’s sclerotic legacy bureaucracy. Meanwhile, Ukrainian professionals who moved abroad after the 2022 invasion might be more easily enticed to return home if the state can better guarantee seamless business registration and transparency.
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The United States and Europe are already looking at Ukraine to build, test, and scale the next generation of defense technologies. As they debate their own AI regulations and utilization strategies, they would likewise do well to examine Ukraine’s AI adoption strategy as a similar starting point for further innovation.
It remains unlikely that many Western countries will be as willing to deploy AI in citizen-to-government interactions as aggressively as Ukraine has done. To be sure, Fedorov and the country’s digital ministry might not have pushed Diia.AI as fast if Ukraine had not needed the innovative solutions necessitated by Russia’s full-scale war.
The innovation versus security debate will certainly intensify in Ukraine as a broader suite of consumer-facing public and private sector-built AI products roll out during Ukraine’s recovery. If these rapid roll outs continue, concerns about data privacy and platform security will also surely crop up, both among the Ukrainian public and in the expert community.
Nevertheless, approaching agentic AI as a means to improve government performance and service delivery should be an attractive proposition to Western democracies. The frontier of AI capabilities is advancing quickly; governments that do not integrate AI-enabled services risk growing friction with increasingly AI-native populations and could miss important opportunities to shape the development of new technologies.
It might be possible for Western governments to build off the example of Diia.AI. This could involve training a top-quality model on existing government data for a specific use case like the filing of an individual tax document, while deploying it with data security and safety guardrails. Piloting an agent for one particular use minimizes risk and makes it easier to iterate and fine tune, much as governments procure micro quantities of drones for battlefield testing before buying in bulk.
Just as cooperating with Ukraine in drone development may prove crucial to partner countries looking to enhance their future defense and deterrence capabilities, a more open-minded approach to learning from Ukraine’s forward-leaning AI deployment strategy may be useful in modernizing government service provisions to citizens.
Andrew D’Anieri is associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.
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