Are Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC)s at Risk Due to AI?

Operate and monitor communications, detection, and weapons systems essential for controlling air, ground, and naval operations. Duties include maintaining and relaying critical communications between air, naval, and ground forces; implementing emergency plans for natural and wartime disasters; relaying command center information to high-level military and government decisionmakers; monitoring surveillance and detection systems, such as air defense; interpreting and evaluating tactical situations and making recommendations to superiors; and operating weapons targeting, firing, and launch computer systems.

The occupation "Command and Control Center Specialists" (slug "command-and-control-center-specialists") has a base risk of 0.0% automation, reflecting the highly complex, dynamic, and judgment-intensive nature of the role. Individuals in this occupation are responsible for integrating rapidly changing information, making critical decisions under pressure, and coordinating multi-domain operations—tasks that current AI and robotic technologies are unable to fully replicate. Unlike professions driven by routine processes, this role demands advanced situational awareness, mission adaptability, and strong interpersonal communication. Even as automation advances, the occupation's core responsibilities hinge on cognitive flexibility and real-time problem solving in unpredictable environments, minimizing any significant risk of full automation. The top three most automatable tasks within this occupation are: processing and displaying standardized sensor data, handling routine administrative reporting, and logging system status information. While these tasks involve some technical skill and accuracy, their repetitive and structured nature makes them more amenable to automation by existing software and data-processing tools. Automating data logging and reporting can help reduce human error and free specialists to focus on higher-order responsibilities, but these tasks alone do not constitute the main portion of their job functions. Conversely, the top three most resistant tasks are: making critical real-time operational decisions, managing complex crisis scenarios involving multiple stakeholders, and coordinating human teams across multi-agency boundaries. The main bottleneck skills for these tasks include advanced decision-making (Expert level), dynamic communication (Advanced to Expert level), and adaptive leadership under uncertainty (Expert level). These skills require nuanced judgment, emotional intelligence, and rapid reasoning that artificial intelligence has yet to meaningfully approximate. Given the strategic and human-centered core of the occupation, and the irreplaceable nature of these skills, the automation risk remains effectively at 0.0%.