Shield claims to have built the “world’s best AI pilot.” Does it live up to that considerable hype? (And for those who are wondering how many people are trying to build AI pilots, the answer is “probably more than you think.”) The U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and Brazil Armed Forces certainly seem supportive of Shield’s efforts. They’re all clients of the $2.3 billion company, which uses AI to power drones, co-pilot fighter planes such as F-16 fighter jets, and assist with added autonomy for other aerospace and defense technologies.

Co-founded by a former Navy SEAL and an MIT alum, Shield certainly has the right pedigree when it comes to the areas it’s working in. While it’s hardly building everyday, consumer-facing tech, its creations certainly have the potential to impact our lives more than any other technology on this list—even if we might not be immediately aware of it.

Shield’s small-unmanned aircraft system, Nova, was the inaugural AI-enabled drone deployed for the purposes of defense in the history of the United States. Meanwhile, its Hivemind autonomy stack can be used to create swarms of autonomous, AI-piloted drones or bring AI smarts to F-16 fighters. Although the company would certainly never claim to replace highly skilled military personnel, the hope of its autonomous AI systems is that it could potentially stop human pilots from being put in harm’s way unnecessarily. Instead, Shield’s AI systems can react to battlefield environments without the need for GPS, communications, previous knowledge of a location or scenario, or even necessarily a human support pilot physically present in the cockpit.

Earlier this year, Shield AI signed a “memorandum of understanding” agreement with Boeing to explore possibly strategic collaboration in the “areas of autonomous capabilities and artificial intelligence on current and future defense programs.”

Expect to see plenty more innovation—and, based on defense spending, allotted budgets—in this area over the coming years.