CDAO Archives | DefenseScoop https://defensescoop.com/tag/cdao/ DefenseScoop Mon, 28 Jul 2025 17:28:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://defensescoop.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2023/01/cropped-ds_favicon-2.png?w=32 CDAO Archives | DefenseScoop https://defensescoop.com/tag/cdao/ 32 32 214772896 Former Pentagon CDAO Radha Plumb takes AI transformation role at IBM https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/28/radha-plumb-ibm-cdao-defense-department/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/28/radha-plumb-ibm-cdao-defense-department/#respond Mon, 28 Jul 2025 17:28:16 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=116455 As part of her role, Plumb will be IBM's "Client Zero," meaning she will internally operationalize AI technologies and concepts to test them before deploying to clients.

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After stepping down from leading the Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office during the Biden administration in January, Radha Plumb has taken a role at IBM, leading what the firm calls “AI-first transformation.”

As vice president of AI-first transformation, Plumb will spearhead IBM’s Next-Generation Transformation Strategy and work across the company’s core business lines to foster adoption of AI, automation and hybrid cloud computing throughout the global organization and with its clients and partners.

Plumb started in the role July 14.

A key part of her job, Plumb told DefenseScoop, will be serving as IBM’s “Client Zero,” meaning she will internally operationalize AI technologies and concepts to test them before deploying to clients.

“The approach is really taking AI solutions and embedding them in the company’s own processes and then using that to prove out how AI solves problems, drives agility, creates efficiencies, which IBM then can use to help demonstrate that value for its customers, right? So, this is an internal transformation role, but with an eye towards building out concrete examples of execution for external consumption,” Plumb told DefenseScoop.

That’s not so dissimilar from her role leading the CDAO, which serves as a central hub for accelerating and spreading the adoption of AI, data and analytics capabilities across the U.S. military. She likened it to the work of CDAO’s Rapid Capabilities Cell, which has been responsible for ushering in major contracts with frontier AI models.

Likewise, IBM is very focused on “scaled adoption at the enterprise level,” Plumb said.

“So how can you get AI tools into the hands of your workforce, and do it in a way that, rather than AI as a substitute for all the humans, you team AI with the humans to drive efficiency and productivity?” she said.

Plumb explained: “IBM’s big bet is … how can we do this as an enterprise transformation and really kind of drive the AI transformation vision in concrete ways through businesses.”

In particular, she sees an opportunity for IBM in working with her former employer, the Pentagon, and the federal government at large on the business side with applications, for example, managing supply chains, logistics, contracting and more.

“That’s where I think there’s a lot of potential for rapid movement of things we find that work in IBM and applications to the federal sector,” Plumb said.

Since Plumb’s departure from the CDAO in January, the office was led by Margie Palmieri, the deputy CDAO, until DOD leadership named Douglas Matty as the new leader in April. Matty previously founded the Army AI Integration Center under Army Futures Command, which he led between 2020 and 2022. Last week, DefenseScoop reported that Palmieri, one of the CDAO’s longest-tenured leaders, is the latest to depart the organization amid a raft of others who’ve left.

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Future of Advana data platform unclear as Pentagon halts AI multiple award contract https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/23/future-of-advana-data-platform-unclear-as-pentagon-halts-ai-multiple-award-contract/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/23/future-of-advana-data-platform-unclear-as-pentagon-halts-ai-multiple-award-contract/#respond Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:01:09 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=116261 Pentagon leadership recently paused the Chief Digital and AI Office’s program to re-compete a high-dollar contract for its widely used enterprise data and analytics platform, Advana, according to a special notice that terminates an associated market research effort. “This draft solicitation has been canceled as the Advancing Artificial Intelligence Multiple Award Contract (AAMAC) program is […]

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Pentagon leadership recently paused the Chief Digital and AI Office’s program to re-compete a high-dollar contract for its widely used enterprise data and analytics platform, Advana, according to a special notice that terminates an associated market research effort.

“This draft solicitation has been canceled as the Advancing Artificial Intelligence Multiple Award Contract (AAMAC) program is currently on hold,” officials wrote in the contracting document published Wednesday.

Advana is a mash-up of two words: advancing analytics. It refers to a complex data warehouse and platform that supplies the military, defense officials and their approved partners with decision-support analytics, visualizations and data-driven tools. 

Advana’s origin traces back to DOD’s chief financial officer’s unit, when staff needed to pull data from thousands of disparate business systems that were not interoperable at the time. 

In 2021, Booz Allen Hamilton won a five-year, $647 million contract to expand the program. Shortly after that, Advana’s management and oversight was one of the main Pentagon elements transitioned to underpin the CDAO when that office launched and became operational in 2022, during the Biden administration.

In the fall of 2024, senior Defense Department officials unveiled aims to potentially award follow-on contracts — and ultimately fund up to $15 billion to a diverse range of companies over the next 10 years. The draft request for proposals to inform the DOD’s potential development of an AAMAC solicitation was released in November.

Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, the near-term vision for the CDAO’s path ahead — as well as Advana’s — has not been revealed. There’s also been an exodus of senior staff from the office, including some who will not be replaced as newly installed defense leaders prioritize President Donald Trump’s demands for cuts and efficiency. 

In response to questions about the reason for the solicitation cancellation, the AAMAC hold, and the plan for the platform moving forward, a defense official told DefenseScoop: “Advana continues to mature technically and programatically. It serves as a foundational enterprise capability. The department will initiate activities in the coming months to leverage best of industry support to meet department requirements.”

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Longtime CDAO deputy Margie Palmieri poised to depart defense AI hub https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/21/margie-palmieri-cdao-departure-defense-department/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/21/margie-palmieri-cdao-departure-defense-department/#respond Mon, 21 Jul 2025 16:54:11 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=116208 One of the earliest CDAO employees, Palmieri was tapped to serve as its first-ever deputy chief in 2022, soon after the office was announced.

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Officials in the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office are getting set for one of the hub’s longest-serving leaders — Margie Palmieri — to exit from her post as deputy CDAO, DefenseScoop has learned.

“After more than three years as the inaugural Principal Deputy of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, Ms. Margaret Palmieri will be departing the organization in August. We are immensely grateful for the incredible groundwork she laid while standing up the CDAO,” a defense official told DefenseScoop on Monday.

Four predecessor organizations — the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Defense Digital Service, Office of the Chief Data Officer, and the Advana program — were fused together to form the CDAO, which was announced in late 2021 and reached full operating capability in 2022.

One of the earliest CDAO employees, Palmieri was tapped to serve as its first-ever deputy chief in early 2022, soon after the office was announced. Before that, she spent more than a decade in the Office of Naval Operations where she led a number of technology-driving initiatives, including setting up and leading the Navy Digital Warfare Office.

At the CDAO, she helped steer the Pentagon’s AI and machine learning strategy, development and policy formulation and create the foundation for departmentwide digital infrastructure and services to support military and civilian components’ algorithmic-enabled asset deployments. Palmieri also led the CDAO in an acting capacity multiple times during her tenure, including most recently during the transition into the second Trump administration.

Her planned departure marks the latest in an exodus of senior leaders and other technical employees from the CDAO in recent months, and comes as the office’s new leadership has yet to publicly reveal its vision for the future. 

DefenseScoop has contacted Pentagon spokespersons regarding whether a new deputy has been selected to replace the deputy CDAO in a permanent or acting capacity.

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Pentagon awards mega contracts to Musk-owned company, other firms for new ‘frontier AI’ projects https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/14/pentagon-ai-contracts-musk-xai-google-openai-anthropic-cdao/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/14/pentagon-ai-contracts-musk-xai-google-openai-anthropic-cdao/#respond Mon, 14 Jul 2025 20:52:48 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=115969 The Pentagon's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office has awarded contracts to xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google for the new effort.

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On the heels of an award to OpenAI for “frontier AI” projects, the Defense Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) announced Monday that it has added three additional tech giants to the effort, including one owned by Elon Musk.

Anthropic, Google and xAI will join OpenAI on the CDAO’s nascent effort to partner with industry on pioneering artificial intelligence projects focused on national security applications. Under the individual contracts — each worth up to $200 million — the Pentagon will have access to some of the most advanced AI capabilities developed by the four companies, including large language models, agentic AI workflows, cloud-based infrastructure and more.

“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,” Chief Digital and AI Officer Doug Matty said in a statement. “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.”

OpenAI received the first contract for the effort June 17 and will create prototypes of agentic workflows for national security missions. According to CDAO, work with all four vendors will expand the Pentagon’s experience with emerging AI capabilities, as well as give the companies better insights into how their technology can benefit the department.

The contract with CDAO is also another win for xAI, which is owned by Musk — who previously led the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts but recently had a falling out with President Donald Trump over legislation and other issues — and develops the generative AI tool called Grok. The company announced Monday that it was launching a new suite of AI tools for U.S. government users known as “Grok for Government.” The platform is now available to purchase by federal agencies through the General Services Administration, according to a post on X, which Musk also owns.

In a blog post published Monday, Jim Kelly, Google Public Sector’s vice president of federal sales, noted that the company will provide the Pentagon its Cloud Tensor Processing Units for training AI models, AI-powered agents via Google’s Agentspace, and access to the company’s infrastructure based in the contiguous United States.

“These advanced AI solutions will enable the DoD to effectively address defense challenges and scale the adoption of agentic AI across enterprise systems to drive innovation and efficiency with agile, proven technology,” Kelly wrote.

The announcement is the latest step the Defense Department has taken in recent months to accelerate adoption of AI-enabled capabilities developed by commercial companies — many of which have recently announced new business ventures focused on national security.

In June, Anthropic introduced a custom set of its Claude Gov AI models that are tailored specifically to defense use cases, ranging from operational planning to intelligence analysis. The same month, OpenAI launched a new initiative called “OpenAI for Government” that expands on its current partnerships with the Defense Department and other U.S. government agencies — including custom AI models for national security.

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Pentagon’s AI office eliminates CTO directorate in pursuit of ‘efficiencies’ https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/03/pentagon-ai-office-cdao-eliminates-cto-efficiencies-doge/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/03/pentagon-ai-office-cdao-eliminates-cto-efficiencies-doge/#respond Thu, 03 Jul 2025 17:38:43 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=115425 It's unclear how employees, responsibilities and investments were dispersed following the termination.

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The Pentagon’s artificial intelligence acceleration hub recently moved to terminate its chief technology officer role and directorate after reviews associated with the Trump administration’s spending and staff reductions campaign revealed inefficiencies, budget materials for fiscal 2026 reveal.

Details on the decision are sparse in the documents, but officials wrote that the Chief Digital and AI Office’s CTO “no longer exists or manages resources.” 

President Donald Trump directed federal agencies at the start of his second term to drastically reduce their workforces and assess existing contracts, with aims to ultimately cut back on what his team views as wasteful spending and inefficiencies. The efforts have included initiatives overseen by Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, teams.

While AI is a major priority for the U.S. government under Trump, since then, the Pentagon’s CDAO has seen an exodus of senior leaders and other technical employees.

“As part of broader DOD efficiency efforts, CDAO realized organization efficiencies in FY26, including eliminating the CTO directorate,” a CDAO official told DefenseScoop on Wednesday. “This move has minimal mission impact as CDAO has a strong technical workforce embedded within each of its directorates.”

Budget materials show that the directorate was allocated more than $340 million in fiscal 2024.

The CDAO official declined to share more information regarding how the CTO’s employees, responsibilities and investments were dispersed following the elimination.

Shortly after standing up the CDAO in June 2022, Defense Department leadership hired nearly a dozen senior leaders to serve in its top positions — including Bill Streilein as inaugural CTO. Streilein had previously served as a longtime leader at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and is now back at the lab working as a member of its principal staff.

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Pentagon tapping OpenAI, other vendors for ‘frontier AI’ projects https://defensescoop.com/2025/06/17/pentagon-openai-frontier-ai-projects-cdao/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/06/17/pentagon-openai-frontier-ai-projects-cdao/#respond Tue, 17 Jun 2025 21:38:35 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=114315 A day after the Defense Department announced a new deal with OpenAI, an official with the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office said announcements about additional partnerships with companies for “frontier AI” projects are on the horizon.

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A day after the Defense Department announced a new deal with OpenAI, an official with the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office said announcements about additional partnerships with companies for “frontier AI” projects are on the horizon.

In its daily list of new contract awards, the department announced Monday evening that the CDAO had awarded a $200 million prototype other transaction agreement to OpenAI Public Sector to “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.”

The estimated completion date for the work is July 2026.

The announcement did not provide any additional details about what those capabilities will entail or what specific mission sets they’ll be applied to.

Last year, the CDAO listed a variety of “warfighting” use cases that its newly launched Artificial Intelligence Rapid Capabilities Cell would focus on, including command and control, decision support, operational planning, logistics, weapons development and testing, uncrewed and autonomous systems, intelligence activities, information operations and cyber operations.

“Enterprise management” use cases include financial systems, human resources, enterprise logistics and supply chain, health care information management, legal analysis and compliance, procurement processes, and software development and cybersecurity.

On Tuesday, DefenseScoop sent the CDAO questions seeking more information about the deal with OpenAI.

In a statement, a CDAO official said the vendor will be expected to “prototype agentic workflows to address our hardest challenges.”

The official, who provided comment on the condition of anonymity, added that more announcements are expected in the near term.

“This award is another step on our journey toward accelerating the adoption of advanced AI capabilities across the Department, and, in the coming weeks, we will announce partnerships with other Frontier AI companies as well. Access to top tier talent from partners like OpenAI is critical for building the agentic workflows needed to increase Joint Force lethality and enterprise efficiencies,” they said.

They noted that the CDAO has recently partnered with the Army’s Enterprise Large Language Model (LLM) Workspace to provide military users across the combatant commands, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Staff access to “industry-leading general purpose LLMs.”

In an press release Monday evening announcing the launch of a new “OpenAI for Government” initiative, the company noted the new $200 million deal with the CDAO, saying the organization will help the Pentagon “identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations, from improving how service members and their families get health care, to streamlining how they look at program and acquisition data, to supporting proactive cyber defense.”

More broadly, the company said the OpenAI for Government initiative will give customers access to its “most capable” models within “secure and compliant environments,” including through ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Gov.

It will also offer custom models for national security organizations on a limited basis, per the announcement.

Katrina Mulligan, the head of the company’s national security policy and partnerships who previously served as chief of staff to the secretary of the Army and principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told DefenseScoop that the new project with the CDAO marks a major milestone for OpenAI for Government as it moves to expand its work in the public sector.

“The $200 million ceiling reflects the Department’s trust in OpenAI to responsibly bring frontier AI into mission-critical settings. CDAO is also creating a framework for how OpenAI’s leading expertise can be used to develop and test solutions that support the Department of Defense in its mission to ensure the safety and security of Americans,” she wrote.

An OpenAI spokesperson said the goal of the pilot program is to “scope” and prototype potential applications for frontier AI.

“The contract aims to explore where OpenAI’s tools can improve military operations and cybersecurity, save time for staff by making tedious work more efficient, and help DoD better support service members. DoD requires this type of contract to scope future partnerships, and the project is structured to lead into a potential follow-on production agreement. The applications may take different functions and forms that are yet to be determined – but could include all of our services,” they told DefenseScoop, adding that all use cases must be consistent with the company’s usage policies and guidelines, which “prohibit its use for the development or use of weapons.”

The announcement of the $200 million deal came just a few days after OpenAI’s chief product officer Kevin Weil joined the Army Reserve to serve in Detachment 201, a new “Executive Innovation Corps,” along with other execs from the tech community.

Mikayla Easley contributed reporting for this story.

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‘Growing demand’ sparks DOD to raise Palantir’s Maven contract to more than $1B https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/23/dod-palantir-maven-smart-system-contract-increase/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/23/dod-palantir-maven-smart-system-contract-increase/#respond Fri, 23 May 2025 20:02:27 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=112977 Despite the high price tag, questions linger about the Defense Department's plan for the AI-powered Maven Smart System.

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Pentagon leaders opted to boost the existing contract ceiling for Palantir Technologies’ Maven Smart System by $795 million to prepare for what they expect will be a significant influx in demand from military users for the AI-powered software capabilities over the next four years, officials familiar with the decision told DefenseScoop this week. 

“Combatant commands, in particular, have increased their use of MSS to command and control dynamic operations and activities in their theaters. In response to this growing demand, the [Chief Digital and AI Office] and Army increased capacity to support emerging combatant command operations and other DOD component needs,” a defense official said Thursday.

Questions linger, however, regarding the MSS deployment plan — and who is part of the expanded user base set to gain additional software licenses through this huge contract increase in the near term.

The Pentagon originally launched Project Maven in 2017 to pave the way for wider use of AI-enabled technologies that can autonomously detect, tag and track objects or humans of interest from still images or videos captured by surveillance aircraft, satellites and other means.

In 2022, Project Maven matured into Maven via the start of a major transition. At that time, responsibilities for most of the program’s elements were split between the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office, while sending certain duties to the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. 

All three organizations running the program have been largely tight-lipped about Maven — and the associated industry-made MSS capabilities — since the transition. 

The Defense Department inked the initial $480 million, five-year IDIQ contract with Palantir for the program in May 2024. The Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground was listed as the awarding agency, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the funding agency. Around that time, executives at Palantir told reporters that the work under that contract would initially cover five U.S. combatant commands: Central Command, European Command, Indo-Pacific Command, Northern Command/NORAD, and Transportation Command. The tech was also expected to be deployed as part of the Defense Department’s Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE).

In a one-paragraph announcement on Wednesday, DOD revealed its decision to increase that contract ceiling for Palantir’s MSS to nearly $1.3 billion through 2029.

A Pentagon spokesperson referred DefenseScoop’s questions about the move to the Army.

“We raised the ceiling of the contract in anticipation of future demand to support Army readiness. Having the groundwork for the contract in place ahead of time, increases efficiencies and decreases timelines to get the licenses. No acquisition decisions have been made,” an Army official said.

That official referred questions regarding the operational use of MSS — and specifically, which Army units or combatant commands would be front of line to gain new licenses — back to the Pentagon. 

Defense officials did not share further details after follow-up inquiries on Friday. A Palantir spokesperson also declined DefenseScoop’s request for comment.

NGA Director Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth confirmed this week that there are currently more than 20,000 active Maven users across more than 35 military service and combatant command software tools in three security domains — and that the user base has more than doubled since January. 

Palantir also recently signed a deal with NATO for a version of the technology — Maven Smart System NATO — that will support the transatlantic military organization’s Allied Command Operations strategic command.

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CDAO leaves edge data mesh nodes behind with Indo-Pacom after success in major exercise https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/14/cdao-leaves-edge-data-mesh-nodes-indo-pacom-after-major-exercise/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/14/cdao-leaves-edge-data-mesh-nodes-indo-pacom-after-major-exercise/#respond Wed, 14 May 2025 20:54:17 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=112317 This moves DOD closer to real-time data flow between the tactical edge and operational and strategic decision-makers, officials said.

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The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office completed the first successful demonstration of its Edge Data Mesh technology stack at the Army’s major capstone exercise in April — and officials left some of the nodes in place for real-world, operational use in the Pacific after the large-scale experiments concluded, according to an internal unclassified document DefenseScoop viewed this week.

“This progress moves us closer to bi-directional, real-time data flow between the tactical edge and operational and strategic decision-makers,” CDAO officials wrote.

In response to questions about the document’s contents, a defense official confirmed on Wednesday that the office, in partnership with the joint force, recently closed out the thirteenth iteration of its Global Information Dominance Experiment (GIDE) series, which unfolded in conjunction with the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 5 (PC-C5) event.

GIDE is rooted in the Defense Department’s aims to get new technologies and equipment into the hands of warfighters for iterative testing and refinement through distributed, digital experiments, sprints and military service-led exercises like PC-C5.

Early versions of the GIDE series launched in 2020 and were facilitated by U.S. Northern Command. But in 2022, Pentagon leadership under the Biden administration tasked the CDAO with revamping the effort to strategically enable capabilities that could help realize the U.S. military’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control warfighting construct. 

Since then, GIDE experiments have generally run approximately every 90 days.

In the CDAO document summarizing multiple takeaways from GIDE 13, officials wrote that PC-C5 “served as the first major exercise venue to demonstrate” the EDM line of effort, which the office awarded a production other transaction agreement for in fall 2024.

“EDM is a government-owned technology stack that enables tactical-level data distribution in disadvantaged, disconnected, intermittent and limited — or DDIL — communications environments through a resilient nodal architecture,” they wrote.

A defense official told DefenseScoop that the CDAO is deploying EDM nodes to tactical users and other key locations to ultimately assess the fusion of operational and tactical data and C2 capabilities.

In the EDM context, nodes essentially refer to physical points within the network that are typically near end users or information sources, where data is captured, processed, or stored. This allows for distributed, decentralized data transmission that could underpin future edge computing missions.

“Edge Data Mesh enables data integration and exchange across multiple networks and data formats, including in denied and degraded communications environments,” the defense official said.

“Core to this effort is the commitment to interoperability using Open DAGIR principles and deployed architectures. The government-owned software development kit allows rapid integration of mature and emerging systems and applications with the EDM architecture,” they added. 

Project Convergence is an Army-led experimentation venue that enables personnel from across the U.S. military services and key allies to train together and collaboratively work out various concepts for integration. Army officials have been transparent about their aims to see new capabilities stay with commands for continued use after Capstone 5. 

In the CDAO document, officials stated that the “Scenario B” portion of PC-C5 provided participants with “a critical opportunity to test and develop EDM interoperability with other mission command platforms in field conditions — which remained behind following the exercise’s completion and will continue to provide resilient tactical data transport in the [area of responsibility].”

Activities associated with that scenario were conducted in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility. They involved tech experiments with all of the service components at the combatant command level.

“We continue to demonstrate that one of the most effective ways to advance modern [command and control, or C2] capability is to exercise and experiment how we fight — on live networks, with live data, with daily users — and leaving behind capability after every exercise,” CDAO officials wrote.

Some of the other “wins” from GIDE 13 listed in the document include demonstrating the integration of third-party software into DOD’s data infrastructure, and integrating multiple third-party generative AI capabilities into existing operational contexts. 

“This significantly accelerates warfighters’ ability to process complex information, especially across maneuver, intelligence, fires, and logistics workflows, shortening decision-loops and ensuring we achieve decision advantage,” the document states.

The defense official did not answer DefenseScoop’s questions regarding the makers and use cases of those genAI assets that were tested in the GIDE 13 and PC-C5 experiments last month.

“GIDE events have incorporated GenAI capabilities supporting a variety of workflows. These capabilities are a subset of GIDE’s mission command software suite, supporting [combatant commands] outside GIDE experimentation, so operators can continue to refine how they use them without waiting for the next experiment,” the defense official said.

They confirmed that GIDE 14 will take place during the upcoming iteration of Pacific Sentry and “Joint Exercise SoCal in Indo-Pacom.”

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CDAO’s future uncertain as slew of top leaders and tech staffers depart https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/07/dod-cdao-future-uncertain-top-leaders-tech-staffers-depart/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/07/dod-cdao-future-uncertain-top-leaders-tech-staffers-depart/#respond Wed, 07 May 2025 22:39:16 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=111919 There’s been an exodus of senior leaders and other technical employees from the Pentagon’s AI hub in recent months, sources said.

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There’s been an exodus of senior leaders and other technical employees from the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office in recent months as the organization’s future remains in limbo, according to multiple current and former government officials who spoke to DefenseScoop on the condition of anonymity this week. 

“At a time when [Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth] wants to prioritize the use of AI to modernize the Defense Department, it’s more important than ever to have a highly effective and motivated CDAO team,” a source said Wednesday.

The CDAO achieved full operational capability in 2022 — under the Biden administration — after merging four technology-focused organizations at the Pentagon: the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Defense Digital Service (DDS), Office of the Chief Data Officer, and the Advana program.

Commercial tech executive Craig Martell initially led the office from its inception until his resignation in early 2024. Defense acquisition expert Radha Plumb served as the second permanent CDAO from April of that year to January 2025. 

Last month, Douglas Matty became the first official to steer the CDAO on a permanent basis under the new Trump administration.

He’s taking the helm as the office is involved in a variety of DOD-wide initiatives that seek to accelerate data analytics, automation, computer vision, machine learning and next-generation AI capabilities for military and civilian personnel — all of which align with the Trump team’s priorities.

Matty’s tenure begins at a time when questions about the defense AI hub’s next chapter continue to swirl. Several officials suggested that government leaders are exploring plans to consolidate CDAO with other DOD organizations, including the Defense Innovation Unit. Simultaneously, the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team is promoting disruptive initiatives to cut what they consider wasteful spending and drastically reduce the size of the U.S. federal workforce.

Officials who DefenseScoop connected with in separate conversations this week said that over the last few months — both before and after Matty came onboard — a noticeable number of key employees have exited or announced plans to leave their positions in the near term. 

Social media posts and public reports have also reflected those recent departures of experienced CDAO officials in high-stakes positions, including former deputy for mission analytics, Garrett Berntsen; former acting deputy for acquisitions and assurance, Bonnie Evangelista; former deputy for advanced C2 acceleration, Jock Padgett; former Global Information Dominance Experiments lead, Matt Strohmeyer; as well as Defense Digital Service director Jennifer Hay and her team.

Replacements for those positions, as well as the office’s algorithmic warfare chief and Advana platform lead have not been named publicly, and leadership roles listed on the CDAO’s official website continue to dwindle.

“The organization is clearly in crisis, with a continued stream of leaders and technical staff departing either through the Trump administration’s workforce reduction efforts, or simply by choice,” one official told DefenseScoop.

They and other sources also said that, over the last week or so, DOGE officials have called current and former staff asking for direct feedback on CDAO leadership, culture and organizational challenges.

A spokesperson for the office did not provide comments by press time on the alleged exodus, or disclose the number of CDAO officials who have opted into the Trump administration’s various accelerated departure options for DOD civilian employees.

“CDAO fully supports the department’s efforts to identify efficiencies while improving our ability to deliver lethality for our warfighters. While we don’t comment on individuals leveraging existing and recently initiated human resource initiatives, many of the personnel actions are aligned to continuous improvements that align human capital to organizational functions. Additionally, these transitions illustrate the high quality of individuals that have added value in government service and continue to have opportunities in the private sector,” a defense official said Wednesday. 

“CDAO continues to execute its mission and process Deferred Resignation Program requests. The department approved approximately 22,000 employees to participate in the OPM DRP (Round 1). The DOD offered its own DRP (Round 2) from April 7 through April 14, 2025, and the department is still collecting and evaluating that data,” they also told DefenseScoop.

Matty is set to testify Thursday on Capitol Hill at a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on the Pentagon’s current IT and AI posture.

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Former Army AI leader tapped as Pentagon’s next CDAO https://defensescoop.com/2025/04/18/dod-cdao-douglas-matty-appointed-ai-leader-trump-pentagon/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/04/18/dod-cdao-douglas-matty-appointed-ai-leader-trump-pentagon/#respond Fri, 18 Apr 2025 18:24:32 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=110982 The Trump administration appointed a new Chief Digital and AI Officer at the Defense Department.

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Douglas Matty is poised to assume the role of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Officer on Monday, according to an internal unclassified email viewed by DefenseScoop.

The principal deputy who has been temporarily leading the AI hub ahead of the Trump administration’s selection for the new chief, Margie Palmieri, sent the announcement to several senior officials Friday morning. In the email, she indicated that more communications on the team’s path ahead would soon follow, once Matty takes the reins next week.

Matty previously founded the Army AI Integration Center under Army Futures Command, which he led between 2020 and 2022.

“We are excited to get appointed leadership at the helm of CDAO so early in the administration. The prioritization on filling the top Al and data related leadership position in DoD will enable the Department to better accelerate and scale the adoption of data, analytics, and Al in line with the Secretary’s priorities,” Palmieri wrote. 

Ahead of reaching full operational capacity in 2022, the CDAO merged and integrated four technology-focused predecessor organizations at the Pentagon: the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Defense Digital Service (DDS), Office of the Chief Data Officer, and the Advana program. 

Commercial tech executive Craig Martell headed the office from its inception until his resignation in early 2024. Defense acquisition expert Radha Plumb served as the second permanent CDAO beginning in April of last year. In December, she shared her plans to depart in January, exclusively with DefenseScoop.

Questions have swirled about the CDAO’s future — and who would take charge as the next chief — since her exit.

As the first official to steer it on a permanent basis under the new Trump administration, Matty will enter at a time when the CDAO is a major player in a range of DOD-wide initiatives that seek to expedite and deliver data analytics, automation, computer vision, machine learning and next-generation AI capabilities for military and civilian personnel.

In the email Friday, Palmieri noted that Matty has “led a distinguished 30 year career as a commissioned officer in the Army, serving in numerous impactful assignments including as an Operations Research Systems Analyst in HQDA, Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Army for Business Transformation, on the staff of the Commander of U.S. Forces Iraq, JS J8, CYBERCOM, and as Deputy Director of the Army Artificial Intelligence Task Force.” 

He graduated from West Point with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and earned a doctorate in engineering systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Dr. Matty brings a breadth of knowledge and experience in delivering Al and digital capabilities to both our warfighters and senior decision makers,” Palmieri wrote.

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