The federal government will spend an extra $2 to $5 billion on upgrading the Australian Defence Force's autonomous capabilities over the next decade.
The funding will be unveiled in the 2026 Integrated Investment Program to be launched by Defence Minister Richard Marles on Thursday.
It adds to the $10 billion in drone investments announced by the Albanese government in 2024, for a total spend of up to $15 billion.
While the increased funding is welcome, Strategic Analysis Australia founder Michael Shoebridge says it won't go far enough.
"The idea that this is some major step into drone and counter drone capabilities for the ADF is empirically not true," he told AAP.
"It's really window-dressing on top of their current plan they made before drones were even present in wars."
Mr Marles has linked the increased spend to conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine, saying the foreign theatres demonstrated the importance of autonomous systems.
"Over the past two years, conflicts overseas have shown just how important drones and uncrewed systems are for our Defence Force," he said on Tuesday.
Mr Shoebridge agreed but said Australia's investments are too skewed towards large, expensive drones at the expense of smaller, mass-produced systems.
"They celebrate the drones they are buying, but they're at the top end of town," Mr Shoebridge said.
"We can only buy a small number of them, and the whole value of drones is you can afford to lose, use, lose and replace them."
He pointed to the Ghost Shark, an autonomous undersea vehicle and the Ghost Bat, an uncrewed aircraft with surveillance and combat capabilities, as larger, more expensive investments.
The federal government announced $1.7 billion in funding for the Ghost Shark in September and $1.4 billion for the Ghost Bat in December.
Both are designed and manufactured in Australia.
"Both of those (systems) are quite expensive and only available in small numbers," Mr Shoebridge said.
"They're the opposite to the cheap, high volume systems we see being used so effectively in Ukraine and by Iran."
It speaks to a broader problem with Australia's defence spending, he said, pointing to the outlay on big-ticket items such as the AUKUS submarine deal.
The trilateral agreement, struck in 2021, is estimated to cost up to $368 billion over 30 years.
"There's a massive opportunity cost to putting that amount of our defence dollars into a program that delivers so few platforms in such a distant timeline," he said.
Asked if some of that money would be better spent on drones, he answered: "that's obvious, it's just not obvious to our defence bureaucrats."
Mr Marles will launch the Integrated Investment Program, along with the 2026 National Defence Strategy, at the National Press Club on Thursday.
Funding will also go towards Australia's anti-drone capabilities and a range of smaller uncrewed systems.
It comes as the Australian Defence Force prepares to welcome Lieutenant General Susan Coyle as its first female chief of army.
Currently chief of joint capabilities, Lt Gen Coyle will step into the role in July.
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