The Air Current
Will Guisbond
17 Apr 2026
The Federal Aviation Administration is quietly developing a new artificial intelligence-powered software tool for air traffic management that could fundamentally change how the U.S. airspace system operates, according to several people familiar with the project.
Dubbed Strategic Management of Airspace Routing Trajectories (SMART), the stealthy program is being spearheaded personally by Administrator Bryan Bedford who views it as a central pillar of the FAA’s airspace modernization and redesign efforts. Three companies — Palantir, Thales and Airspace Intelligence (ASI) — have been brought in to compete on the initiative, which could be operational in some form as soon as later this year.
SMART could enable the FAA to plan for bottlenecks and anticipate schedule conflicts before an aircraft even leaves the ground, the familiar people said, a distinct shift from today’s human-centric, reactive ATC structure.
