The Defense Department needs to upgrade its IT, add more software specialists, and empower certain programs to be more innovative—especially when it comes to artificial intelligence, the former CEO of Google said March 3. Eric Schmidt, who led Google and its parent company Alphabet from 2001 to 2015 and chaired the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, delivered a keynote address at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., offering what he called several “blunt” criticisms and recommendations for the Pentagon.