The vital necessity of survival often encourages creativity and the use of best practice in employing available technologies and inventing new ones. The ongoing war in Ukraine illustrates numerous innovations and adaptations in technology and fighting tactics across different domains of warfare. While the spread of some technology and know-how might only be known to experts in specific domains, the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the fighting in Ukraine has been widely discussed in public and professional circles. The purpose of this article is to focus on the employment of AI in the aerial domain, addressing the overall trends in the Western, Ukrainian and Russian use of AI and automation. Furthermore, the article addresses how the thinking is changing as a result of the experiences of the war