Pentagon AI agent sped World Cup threat response by 18 minutes

At SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles on June 18, a Pentagon-built AI agent compressed a White House spot report from about 20 minutes to 90 seconds, giving authorities an extra 18 minutes and helping deter a bomb threat during the FIFA World Cup.

The previously undisclosed incident involved Switzerland playing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Army Capt. Ryan Hetrick, who leads the Pentagon’s Generative AI Task Force, disclosed it Nov. 6 at an AI event in Washington.

How did the agent support the response?

Three days before June 18, Hetrick and colleagues from the Defense Department, FBI and Coast Guard met at the White House to design an automated agent to write spot reports for the World Cup Task Force. Spot reports are short, time-sensitive narratives about quickly evolving situations.

In a security incident, on-ground law enforcement would call the White House. The World Cup task force would write the spot report and send it up the chain of command to coordinate a response. The standard process typically took about 20 minutes. The AI agent finished in 90 seconds.

“They had an extra 18 minutes for the White House to coordinate on the ground, and that bomb threat was deterred. You guys never heard about that bomb threat the day of June 18, and our agent was a large part of that,” Hetrick said.

Spokespeople for the White House, FBI and local law enforcement agencies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

How large was the security operation?

The 2026 World Cup brought more than six million spectators from around the world to more than 100 matches in 16 host cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico over two months. Securing those venues required a massive interagency effort using technologies including AI and drones.

That effort extended well beyond the game Hetrick described. Two people were charged in connection with another bomb threat against FIFA during a World Cup match at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

“We ran down criminal tips, investigated swatting incidents, hoax bomb threats and online scams,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post-tournament video. “It’s the most extensive level of support the FBI has ever provided for a global sporting event.”

How is the task force deploying AI elsewhere?

Hetrick has become one of the military’s biggest and busiest evangelists for AI. The GenAI Task Force travels globally to operations floors and the field, where it looks for AI fixes to troops’ most pressing problems.

He urges military organizations to adopt a hands-on approach to AI integration: troops should partner with AI experts, learn cutting-edge techniques, and use innovative service members as in-house AI gurus who can spread knowledge further.

His message is practical rather than procedural. Hetrick said the group skips policy shops and PowerPoints; it goes to the edge and builds with the warfighter, because agents cannot be built from the Pentagon.

A recent visit to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, produced a measurable result. Hetrick built an AI tool that cut one cyber operations workflow from 100 hours to 15. The Defense Department now makes the tool available to all cyber officers.

What does this change for security teams?

For the World Cup task force, the agent shortened spot-report production from about 20 minutes to 90 seconds and returned 18 minutes for coordination. In the Defense Department, the Fort Campbell workflow tool removes 85 hours and is now available to every cyber officer.

The practical benchmark is time returned to people who must act: 18 minutes during a live security incident, 85 hours in a cyber workflow. At the edge of the operation, that saved time helped deter a threat the public never heard about on game day.