- Erik Kannike is CSO of an Estonian startup that's using AI in the defense sector.
- He explains how Ukraine is using the company's AI tool to streamline intelligence gathering.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Erik Kannike, chief strategy officer of defense tech startup SensusQ, which has developed an AI being used by Ukraine and NATO. The following account has been edited for length and clarity.
The world before February 24, 2022 was a difficult place for defense tech startups. The sector lacked access to capital and there wasn't a common understanding of how militaries could use AI-powered technological progress.
But since Russia's invasion of Ukraine there's been a paradigm shift.
Now, my company, SensusQ, is applying the AI revolution to the defense sector and helping Ukraine on the battlefield.
It's not about giving them a fancy AI tool, but about looking at what kind of everyday things they might be able to do quicker and more reliably with AI. These procedures are saving lives.
Faster decision-making
Those James Bond-style dashboards from the movies, where information flies around, don't exist yet. But SensusQ are trying to make them a reality with our AI-powered intelligence system.
In the military, commanders give you a set of questions that need answers. You then use all available resources to answer those questions.
Our system helps by gathering multiple sources of strategic information, be that drone footage, military intel, social media, open source intelligence, satellite images, human intelligence from the ground, signal chats, digital maps of the war zone.
If one piece of information is coming in from various different sources, that raises its credibility.
We're giving military decision-makers clear data in one place thanks to AI. There's not much I can say directly, but this tool is being used in multiple places across Ukraine. It's genuinely exciting to work on.
Its helping them get their forces into a strong position, understand the battlefield, predict what's going on, and get a picture of everything from air, naval, and ground forces.
Intense personal motivation
I'm Estonian. Here, every male citizen has to go through military service, so I've seen firsthand what it means to be a soldier in peace time.
There's also a family background for me, generations of war and conflict. Working to try to strengthen this area and avoid future conflicts is personally very motivating.
And if you look at the geographical location of Estonia, where our company is headquartered, the countries that border Russia are the states that actually need this defense digitalization the most.
My military experience has helped me recognize that there's so much you can do to improve information accessibility in these situations. That innovation motivates me to put my skills to use every day.
Credibility barrier
From 2018 to 2022 it was all about fintechs and social media giants. Europe missed the boat in the previous phase of startups, except for a few exceptions like Spotify.
But now there's a lot of funding flowing into the sector. Some defense companies are fundraising amounts that are equivalent to or larger than normal tech companies.
The credibility barrier that you need to get funds is much higher, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
And, while there's a lot of talk around regulation, there's a very clear exception for defense in the EU's new AI directive.
Everything you develop is going into a hostile environment
If you're going to work in defense tech, you need to be in Ukraine. Every single Western military has their eyes on that conflict.
And Ukrainians are very pragmatic. They are fighting an active war. If they don't think it provides value, they're not going to spend their time on your tool.
So you have to optimize and really think about what can be easy to use and deploy, and will actually provide value.
Everything you develop is being deployed into a hostile environment. It's not only ransomware hackers, like on the civilian side. You have a very well-funded enemy organization dedicated to exploiting, breaking, and stealing, whatever you do.
If your technology is captured by the enemy, you have to make sure they're not able to access the database back at headquarters. It's a responsibility that we think about on a daily basis.
Russia is innovating as quickly as Europe
There's been a misconception that the Russians are unable to adapt or don't have much technological innovation. I find that to be quite untrue – they are very capable, be that in UAVs, munitions, signals, or electronic warfare.
There is a similar process of innovation and small Russian companies are also getting exposure to the front lines. And they're moving very quickly as well.
Any new piece of hardware or software that reaches the front lines in Ukraine from the western side is going to have another company in Russia that is dedicated to making that not work.