The company said the event marked the first true one-to-many lethal strike by small attritable systems in a live-fire environment. It demonstrated that a single warfighter can deliver combat power previously requiring entire formations.
The demonstration served as an early preview of the Department of War Swarm Forge program, which aims to test and scale AI-enabled ways of fighting. It combined U.S. military units with technology providers, including Auterion and Kraken Kinetics, under operational conditions.
The future of warfare is now.
Drone swarms and AI-enabled capabilities will be embedded into our entire fighting force.
The @DeptofWar will be AI-FIRST. pic.twitter.com/GNLhyypQ1q
— Department of War CTO (@DoWCTO) January 14, 2026
“The one-pilot, one-drone model is obsolete,” said Lorenz Meier. “What we showed in Florida is that software now decides who brings mass to the fight. One soldier. Three targets. One coordinated strike.”
Auterion said its software allowed the operator to assign objectives and authorize lethal effects while autonomous systems handled navigation, formation control, and guidance. The use of EFP warheads designed to defeat heavy armor highlighted what the company described as a shift in infantry lethality.
“Autonomous mass isn’t about flying more drones,” Meier said. “It’s about collapsing the kill chain until decision-to-impact happens faster than the enemy can react. We have demonstrated that we can give American warfighters the edge.”
The Florida test followed Auterion’s earlier multi-manufacturer swarm demonstration and completed what the company described as the lethal end of the kill chain in a realistic environment. Auterion also said it has shipped more than 30,000 Skynode Strike kits to Ukraine in support of Ukraine’s defense capabilities.
“Every modern military is chasing force multipliers,” Meier said. “Today, we proved that autonomous swarms put that multiplier directly in the hands of the individual warfighter. This is how smaller forces defeat larger ones.”
