Army exceeds recruiting projections, revamps approach, harnesses AI

WASHINGTON - For the first time in 15 years, the Army has met its recruiting goals for its most elite force.

The Army successfully fulfilled its recruiting mission for Army Special Forces military occupational specialties on Aug. 24. The service signed 2,963 for its combined active duty and accessions mission, exceeding its Special Forces mission of 2,839. The Army last completed its Special Forces recruiting mission in 2011.

The Army assigns its Special Forces troops to different military occupational specialties in weapons, intelligence, communications, medical and operations. Known as Green Berets, the Soldiers are stationed in Washington state, Japan, North Carolina, Kentucky, Florida and Colorado.

The service continues to build on its recruiting momentum after successfully hitting its annual active-duty recruiting targets four months ahead of schedule in May. The Army Reserve recently achieved its recruiting goal of 14,322 in mid-September, fulfilling its mission for the first time in 10 years. The Army National Guard also met its recruiting projections on Sept. 24 and currently has signed 37,654 recruits with a mission of 37,155, or 101.3% of its fiscal year mission.

Army Lt. Gen. Johnny Davis, who leads U.S. Army Recruiting Command, said higher recruit numbers have allowed the service to focus on the needs of its most pressing career fields, including infantry, field artillery and armor. The recruiting mission has evolved since Davis took over Army Recruiting Command in 2022 as a two-star general, he said.

In December 2025, Army Recruiting Command became a three-star command when it absorbed responsibility for the Center for Initial Military Training, which oversees Army basic combat training.

"Before, it was … 'Hey, let's just fill up basic training and get them off to [advanced individual training] functional training and then off to units,'" Davis said during an Association of the U.S. Army discussion on Sept. 29.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, recruiters had limited access to public schools and other restrictions, which impacted their connections to local communities.

Davis said the Army revamped its recruiting approach by viewing recruiting from recruiters' perspective and giving them more incentives, including rank promotions. During fiscal year 2026, the Army promoted 431 eligible sergeants to staff sergeants after completing the Army Recruiter Course. The service also offered recruiters a one-time lump sum of $5,000 upon completing the class within 120 days. Davis said the Army's return to the "be all you can be" slogan also helped garner more interest in military service.

He added that during the next fiscal year, the Army plans to increase the number of Soldiers who receive officer commissions through the direct commissioning program - up from 50 to 100 to about 300 to 400. He said he hopes to pull fewer officers from their basic career branches for infantry, field artillery or armor positions; the service will look for candidates with the needed training and skill sets that closely match that field.

Additionally, Davis said he wants to take the Army's medical recruiting a step further and plans to place Army medical recruiters on medical school campuses.

"How do we connect with them?" he said. "Because there's doctors who want to serve. We're looking to find ways to do that. We're trying to find where we can be more efficient in the medical side. There's a bunch of different specialties in the medical field that we can fill all day and night."

Davis said the service piloted an artificial intelligence program to bolster recruiting, using Staff Sgt. Star, an AI-powered chatbot. Although the Army has used a virtual assistant in recruiting since 2006, the service has incorporated more AI capabilities than ever before. Staff Sgt. Star, built by the Army's Accessions Information Environment, accesses and processes authoritative information directly from Army leadership and currently serves about 12,000 users.

The Army plans to add more capabilities to the chatbot, and Davis said it will eventually be able to process information tasks, not just answer questions.