AUVSI Defense 2025: Michael Robbins Keynote Remarks

October 28, 2025

Keynote remarks delivered by AUVSI President and CEO Michael Robbins at AUVSI Defense on October 28, 2025:

Good morning.  

It’s an interesting moment to come together. Washington is living through a shutdown again. Our troops got paid, but our DoD civilians did not, along with hundreds of thousands of other public servants. It is unclear what happens next.  

Many are furloughed, but the work of government continues, especially in national security and defense.  

Our troops remain at their stations around the world.  

The defense enterprise still tests, trains, and fields. 

Commands still stand their watches. 

My Reserve duty is on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff watch floor. Still operating 24/7/365.  

Our public servants do their duty.  

And the people in this room are still building what our warfighters need.  

That contrast is worth noting: Congress may fail to pass appropriations, but we can’t stop working to drive transformation 

Certainly, our adversaries don’t pause when our government shuts down.  

So, the challenge before us isn’t whether the noise will subside; it’s how we work through it.

And we will work through it.  

AUVSI’s mission is to ensure we are moving industry forward. We work to bring clarity and momentum in the midst of the noise.  

We advocate – we are a lobbying organization. Each day, we are engaging the Pentagon, service branches and combatant commands and Capitol Hill to keep our members priorities at the forefront.  

AUVSI also does compelling research on the autonomous systems industry and federal defense spending, and we provide industry certifications for operator training and cybersecurity. You’ll hear more about how those lines of effort are helping drive the industry forward over the next 2 days. 

AUVSI’s efforts are expanding through new partnerships like our collaboration with Altana, whose AI-powered global supply chain platform is helping us better illuminate supplier networks, and enhance the continuous monitoring capabilities of our Green UAS and Blue UAS Recognized Assessor programs.  

Together, we’re helping government and industry identify and mitigate supply chain risks; supporting the trusted industrial base our nation needs. 

We also provide thought leadership and education, bringing the industry and government together at events like this to focus on your capture strategy for unmanned systems and to work through common problems our industry faces.  

And I am proud of how this community shows up when it matters.  

Thank you for being here with us today at AUVSI Defense. 

I also want to thank our sponsors. 2 years ago, we had 4 sponsors for this event. Last year we had 14. This year we have 22.  

That growth is a testament to the rising significance in this event, and credit to the excellent work of the AUVSI team 

Thank you to: 

• Elsight 
• Tulsa Innovation Labs 
• Ondas Autonomous Systems 
• xCraft 
• Destinus (Daedalean AI) 
• Clairvest Group 
• Domo Tactical Communications 
• Seasats 
• Fotokite US 
• Tualcom USA 
• Printed Circuit Board Association of America (PCBAA) 
• AWS 
• Lockheed Martin 
• ZenaTech Inc 
• NAMC 
• Vector Defense 
• Ruralsky  
• SkyTech Orion 
• Unusual Machines 
• Advanced Navigation 
• VATN Systems 
• Neros 

That is a great list of companies in the air, ground, and maritime domains, representing the range of innovative companies AUVSI is proud to represent.  

This event matters because it is where industry and government can come together to have real conversations and work towards solving problems like supply chain constraints, moving from demonstrating capability into DoW contracts, and aligning Pentagon investments into meaningful programs.   

And despite the noise externally, one thing cannot be denied: This is a transformational era for autonomy.  

We’ve had some very significant Executive Orders from President Trump –  

• Reforming Military Acquisition 
• Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance 
• Reforming Foreign Defense Sales  
• Unleashing American Drone Dominance  
• Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty  

And many of those EO’s have been followed by actions that have begun to translate the EOs from policy positions into meaningful operational reforms, including:  

• long-awaited State Department action on Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to treat certain UAS more like manned fighter aircraft than missile systems 
• And Secretary Hegseth’s Unleashing Military Drone Dominance memo removing red tape from acquisition and leveraging the power of American capitalism.  

We’ve also had the launch of the Army’s Transformation Initiative, and a request from Secretary Driscoll for greater budget flexibility for drone, counter drone, and electronic warfare (EW) technology. 

We are in the early days of the Navy’s & Coast Guards’ establishment of respective Robotic and Autonomous Systems leadership divisions, which we are very motivated about.  

And, we have more than $13B directed by Congress towards unmanned systems programs in the budget reconciliation bill. 

And closely related to the defense actions, the Department of Commerce has been active in national security investigations and rulemaking related to supply chain risks, global trade imbalances, and choke points.  

That is real momentum like we’ve never seen before, and on each, AUVSI has been instrumental in helping to shape the initiative or is helping to guide implementation now.  

For years, we have been talking about this moment.  

The need to get serious about our defense industrial base – and addressing its weaknesses and choke points – and the need to establish a credible, sustained demand signal for a high-low mix of exquisite and attritable systems to the field in meaningful quantities.  

The signal is now here, albeit often imperfect, and execution is still leaving something to be desired, but the direction is right and the money is there.   

AUVSI was instrumental in securing significant funding for numerous autonomous programs in H.R.1, the budget reconciliation bill, that was signed into law this summer.  

The implications for our industry are unequivocally positive: this is a multi-year demand signal.  

The package directs billions across autonomy programs: 

• expanding small and medium USV production,  
• scaling UUV lines,  
• funding AI-enabled naval shipbuilding,  
• surging the sUAS industrial base,  
• investing in layered kinetic and non-kinetic counter-UAS,  
• advancing long-endurance ISR acquisition.  
• And more. 

Truly a remarkable investment. Long overdue, but so very welcome. 

But now comes the hard part. 

These dollars, from the reconciliation, are outside the Congressionally directed appropriations process, which creates some challenges and a lot more work for all of us.  

That means, AUVSI is working to ensure the Department of War and Service Branches have a clear, consistent plan to spend the dollars in ways that deliver capability to the warfighter for the future battlefield and helps industry to scale production and achieve economies of scale to build an uncrewed arsenal to deter and defend against our adversaries. 

AUVSI has also been increasingly focused on the “International” at the end of our name.  

I was in Taiwan a few weeks ago working to build alliances with Taiwanese companies and government authorities and found an island full of energy, intelligence, industrial capacity, and a strong desire to partner with the United States in defense of democracy.  

We are getting the same positive signals from other INDOPACM allies, including Japan, South Korea, India, and of course, our good friends in Australia.  

In Europe, we are working with our allies in Ukraine, Latvia, UK, Germany and other nations – some of whom are here – on joint production, IP sharing, and other partnerships between allied companies and governments. 

When our allies buy with us and build with us, our adversaries have to plan against a network, not a node. We are stronger together with collective deterrence.  

We are also all learning, in real time, from the battlefield. The U.S., our allies, and our adversaries. 

Ukraine’s astonishing scale of drone employment – 9k drones/day and millions each year – has demonstrated both the potential and the limits of cheap mass.  

Drones are the #1 cause of lethality in the Ukraine war. They can also deny terrain, stress logistics, and make movement costly. 

However, Ukraine’s overwhelming reliance on the PRC for drone components has spotlighted a supply chain choke point that the United States and our allies must address together. For Ukraine, with their back up against the wall, they have no other choice.  
 
We have a choice – to plan, invest, buy, and scale now to avoid that pitfall with sUAS as well as other key technologies in the air, ground, and maritime domains.  

Which brings me to a hot topic many of you are tracking: the Army’s SkyFoundry concept. You’ve likely read the reports, especially coming out of AUSA, about the plan for an organic, government-run small-drone innovation and manufacturing effort under Army Materiel Command.  

The goal – more drones, faster – is the right one. But we have to be honest about the best way to get there, and it isn’t relying more on government for innovation and manufacturing.  

AUVSI’s research team shows that, from 2022 through Q1 of this year, total U.S. government obligations for Group 1 UAS were only around $144 million – less than the proposed first-year funding for SkyFoundry.  

Last year, across the entire defense-enterprise, the Pentagon bought less than 4,000 drones.  

That demonstrates the bottleneck isn’t American industrial capacity; it has been the lack of a demand signal from the defense customer.  

Since 2020, DoD has bought more than twenty different Group 1 models in limited quantities – everything from ISR and mapping to FPVs, micros, and loitering systems.  

That diversity is exactly why a one-size, government-built factory is likely to be slower, costlier, and less adaptable than tapping the commercial base that already exists and is rapidly growing.  

As of today, more than a quarter-million square feet in UAS production capacity is under construction, and that is without major awards in hand.  

So, we can spend time and money recreating capacity the private sector already built or is currently building– which will come at higher cost, slower speed, and greater risk of obsolescence – or we can harness the dynamism of American industry with smart contracting, dedicated funding, and recurring, portfolio-level buys.  

The latter path is faster, cheaper, and more resilient.  

Building industrial base depth and redundancy spreads risk across multiple suppliers and lets us surge in crisis.  

It accepts that the mission mix for Group 1 and 2 systems will keep evolving, and it uses competition and iteration to keep pace.  

 
The private sector did its part by investing ahead of the demand signal. Now government needs to meet them with predictable procurement. AUVSI is committed to ensuring the government gets this right.  

I choose to focus on SkyFoundry because it is a great illustration of how AUVSI’s engagement and leadership is helping to take a well-intentioned idea – but one that is potentially very flawed – and direct it into something meaningful and useful. 

As we look at other programs across the autonomous spectrum – the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, the Navy’s evolving ideas around surface and subsurface programs for small, medium, & large platforms, the Marines ROGUE-fires and NMESIS programs, the Army’s evolving focus on ground platforms from ISVs to mission autonomy – AUVSI is at the table working to drive positive outcomes for each. 

And like we did with the reconciliation bill, looking at the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act, we are driving positive outcomes for our members in the legislative arena too. 

AUVSI has strongly endorsed Senator Wicker’s FORGED Act, because it offers a serious, comprehensive way to modernize acquisition by reducing bottlenecks, expanding on-ramps for non-traditional suppliers, and accelerating transition into portfolios of record.  

It’s not a silver bullet; there isn’t one. But it gives contracting officers, PEOs, and commanders better tools to buy outcomes.  

We are working with Senate and House staff directly as they conference the NDAA on multiple provisions, and working to ensure our member’s priorities are heard, understood, and included in final language.  

If you take these many strands together 

• Presidential direction and top cover from Executive Orders, 
• Transformational dollars for autonomy,  
• The Navy and Coast Guard’s reorganizations for RAS, 
• the Army’s ambition for Transformation,  
• Allied demand and co-production, and  
• Acquisition reform with teeth, 

you get a picture of what’s possible in the next eighteen to twenty-four months.  

As Sun Tzu said, “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” AUVSI exists to make this chaos easier to navigate. 

We are here to help you read the policy tea leaves and turn them into practical action –  

• through our advocacy committees in air, ground, maritime, and defense;  
• through our research and certifications, and 
• through thought leadership and convenings like this one where you meet the people who can actually help you achieve your goals.  

Our strength is our members – if you are not already at the table with, come talk to us.  

The future of defense will be driven by autonomous systems, and we intend to be the tip of the spear for our members to ensure warfighters have what they need, where they need it, at the price and pace the mission demands. That is the job. There is no other option.  

Thank you for your work. Thank you for your urgency. And thank you for staying focused on outcomes while the town around us argues. Together, let’s build an uncrewed arsenal for democracy. 

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