When looking at the future of naval platforms and the purpose they serve, artificial intelligence presents immeasurable opportunity for exploitation when the potential of the technology is explored. This paper studies the impacts of the introduction of artificial intelligence on naval platform design and where the direction of travel the discipline may follow in the future. Adopting a bottom-up approach based on the functional breakdown of a typical naval combatant, focus is drawn to six functional groups – navigation, warfare, platform management, recoverability, maintenance and logistics. A comprehensive derivation of functions and sub-functions formed the foundation for the study’s research. Each individual function was assessed to identify its limitations and constraints as well as its potential to realise a marked improvement in performance with the introduction of intelligent technologies be that creation of a fully autonomous system or a calculated human-machine teaming arrangement including identifying specific artificial intelligence classes which could provide the desired effect. This phase of activity generated a series of challenges and opportunities spanning multiple domains and disciplines, outlining what adoption of such technology would mean for wider defence enterprise. There is no question that artificial intelligence has a game changing contribution to make to naval warfare both in terms of supporting and protecting the operator and generally improving how navies conduct their business both at home and overseas. However, there are significant challenges within technical, regulatory, societal and political spheres to overcome which require collaboration and expertise not only across defence enterprise but the wider industry base in order to define a framework within which highly intelligent naval platforms can operate safely, securely and effectively. First, we must frame the question we are trying to answer with artificial intelligence before designing this framework and taking decisions with conviction. This paper takes an initial step on that journey.