Focusing on AI and electronic warfare, IDF restructures computer service directorate

New unit in C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate developing AI-based live-transcription system for all military communications; army says nearly 50% of directorate’s soldiers are women

By Emanuel Fabian

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2 December 2025, 6:08 pm Edit

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

The military on Tuesday completed a reorganization of its C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate, with a new artificial intelligence unit and an expanded electronic warfare array that will further enhance Israel’s defensive cyber capabilities, including countering drone attacks.

The directorate, headed by Maj. Gen. Aviad Dagan, is responsible for building and maintaining the military’s networking and computer systems, as well as defensive cyberspace capabilities and the management of the electromagnetic spectrum, or radio waves.

The restructuring will establish two new divisions, consolidating several smaller departments and forming new units. In total, the directorate will now have five divisions, each headed by a brigadier general.

The top-level units include the Operational Division and C4I Corps (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence,) headed by Chief Signals Officer Brig. Gen. Omer Cohen, and the force build-up division, headed by the directorate’s chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Yael Chaya Grossman.

Below those units are three more divisions, two of which — the Spectrum and Communications Division and Information and Artificial Intelligence Division — were recently formed.

The Spectrum and Communications Division is responsible for the management and exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as for strategic military communications and networking — such as between military headquarters and distant fighter jets or submarines. The division is also set to be responsible for space and satellite communications.

Maj. Gen. Aviad Dagan enters the role of head of the C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate, during a ceremony at the IDF HQ in Tel Aviv, October 28, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Initially, the directorate’s spectrum array was developed as a defensive capability, but during the war, the IDF found it could also be used offensively, including to disrupt enemy communications and take down drones.

During the 12-day war against Iran in June, some 25% of 1,100 drones launched at Israel by Iran were taken out by the 5114th Spectrum Battalion, which operates electronic warfare capabilities, according to military officials.

An Iranian man rides his motorcycle past a Shahed drone in Tehran’s Bahrestan Square on September 27, 2025, as part of an exhibit to commemorate the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

The newly established Information and Artificial Intelligence Division is tasked with developing ICT systems for the entire military, including in the fields of big data, AI, cloud computing, and other software solutions.

Among the capabilities being developed by the new AI division are a system that can transcribe the communications on IDF networks within seconds and provide text transcripts of what is being said in tanks, on aircraft, and aboard Navy vessels, enabling operations to be managed more efficiently, the military said.

Another AI-based system that is under development would enable faster and more effective identification of casualties, according to the IDF.

Additionally, within the AI division is a new unit composed entirely of reservists. Senior officers in the C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate identified, during the war, that reservists who came with advanced knowledge from their civilian work in the tech industry were able to solve problems that soldiers had been working on for months.

The last division, the Cyberspace Defense Division, established in 2018, is tasked with protecting Israel’s cyberspace and the IDF’s electronic systems.

Nearly half of directorate’s soldiers are women, 40% in top command

Half of the C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate’s personnel serve in the directorate itself, while the other half are divided among the military’s various corps, wings, and commands.

Each battalion, brigade, and division in the Ground Forces, and similarly units at all levels in the Navy and Air Force, has signals officers who are tasked with providing networking and communications solutions.

Signals officers of the C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate are seen in an undated photo published by the army on December 2, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

In total, there are 33 separate technological professions for soldiers serving in the directorate.

According to the IDF, nearly 50% of the directorate is composed of women, with female officers making up 40% of the senior command — normally a male-dominated sector in the military — and two of the five brigadier generals heading the directorate’s divisions are women.

Meanwhile, thousands of the directorate’s personnel are currently in the process of moving to a new army campus in Beersheba, where the directorate’s new headquarters will be based, as part of the IDF’s ongoing plans to relocate many units out of central Israel and down south.