| Field | Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | US Department of Defense office | |
| Parent agency | Department of Defense | |
| Chief | Position in transition as of early 2026 (see below); previously [[entities/radha-plumb | Radha Plumb]], 2024–2025 |
| Established | 2022 (consolidating predecessor offices) | |
| Reporting line | Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (since Aug 2025; previously the Deputy Secretary) | |
| Mission | Scale AI adoption and digital transformation across DoD |
The Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) is the US Department of Defense's principal office for accelerating AI adoption and digital transformation. It coordinates AI policy, procurement, and deployment across the department and serves as the institutional interlocutor between frontier commercial AI labs, including Anthropic, and US defense missions (Source: CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary)). The office was led by Radha Plumb during 2024–2025; as of early 2026 its leadership was in transition, with Cameron Stanley reported as the frontrunner for the role (Source: defensescoop.com).
Mandate and origins
The CDAO was established in February 2022 by consolidating the offices of the Chief Data Officer, the Chief Information Officer's AI functions, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), and the Advana data platform team. Its mandate is to scale AI adoption and digital transformation across the Department of Defense, acting as the department-wide coordinator for AI policy, procurement, and deployment and as the institutional point of contact between commercial AI developers and defense missions (Source: CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary)).
2025 realignment and Department of War redesignation
The CDAO traces to the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), established under the Chief Information Officer pursuant to Section 238 of the FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act. A December 8, 2021 memo by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks directed the establishment of the CDAO as the JAIC's successor, reporting directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense — a reporting line Hicks described as intended to produce an "empowered" CDAO and to elevate AI within the department (Source: congress.gov).
On August 14, 2025, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg issued a memo directing the "strategic realignment" of the CDAO under the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)), stating the change was intended to implement the White House AI Action Plan's directive to drive AI adoption within the department. A Congressional Research Service insight characterized the move — shifting the CDAO from a direct report to the Deputy Secretary to a subordinate of USD(R&E) — as "an effective demotion." Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, the inaugural JAIC director, said pulling a direct report to the deputy secretary and moving it elsewhere sent a message that AI "isn't a priority"; proponents argued the realignment unifies AI strategy, development, and deployment to deliver capability "from laboratory to battlefield" (Source: congress.gov).
The department concurrently began using "Department of War" as a secondary designation under Executive Order 14347, dated September 5, 2025 (Source: congress.gov). The Congressional Research Service noted that Congress, which has previously legislated on the department's AI management, may conduct oversight of the realignment and could direct a particular reporting structure for the CDAO, by analogy to its earlier direction that the Defense Innovation Unit director report directly to the Secretary (Source: congress.gov).
AI uses and deployments
AI Rapid Capabilities Cell (AI RCC)
On December 11, 2024, Task Force Lima, the CDAO's predecessor initiative for generative AI, was sunset and its mandate rolled into the permanent AI Rapid Capabilities Cell (AI RCC), operated in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). The AI RCC was funded at $100M across FY24/25, with $35M earmarked for an initial set of four frontier-AI pilots (Source: CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary)).
Pilots run in 90-day increments through the Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE) series. The stated goal is to compress US acquisition speed to be competitive with People's Liberation Army procurement cycles, on the order of 3–6 months for nontraditional vendors. The 90-day sprint model is described as an adaptation to commercial AI release cadences and to the view that traditional DoD acquisition, with its multi-year authorizations to operate (ATOs), is too slow for frontier AI (Source: CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary)).
Agent Network and war data platform
In accounts published July 3, 2026, intelligence and Defense officials touted near-instant kill-chain decisions from a new "Agent Network" and "war data platform" the CDAO is implementing with AWS, Palantir, and Anduril, as officials worked to convert the pilot into a program of record (Source: insidedefense.com). See DOD — Department of Defense (AI Deployer), Defense / Military — AI Deployment.
Oversight and policy context
The CDAO operates under DoD Directive 3000.09, which governs human-judgment requirements for autonomous weapons. Directive 3000.09 requires senior sign-off for meaningful autonomy, while the AI RCC's 90-day cycle is designed to deploy AI before that deliberation process would normally conclude. The two are reconciled through scope: the AI RCC targets decision-support and C5ISRT functions rather than the kinetic autonomy the directive governs, a posture distinct from the autonomous-weapons questions addressed in Autonomous Weapons (Source: CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary)).
The CDAO is the institutional home for the DoD's side of the Anthropic-DoW conflict, the office responsible for resolving which AI systems are cleared for classified defense use. That dispute centers on CDAO interests in accessing Claude for classified purposes that Anthropic's contract restrictions do not permit (Source: CSET + DOJ + CSIS — US-China AI National-Security Axis (composite source summary)).
The office documents the US defense AI procurement architecture, a gap flagged in Missing Coverage: Companies, People, Models, Legislation, Concepts (revised), and provides the institutional home for the US defense acceleration posture described in AI and National Security and AI Race Dynamics.
Relationships
- related: AI and National Security — primary concept page covering CDAO's role
- related: Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) — DIU is CDAO's commercial-pipeline partner in the AI RCC
- related: DoD Directive 3000.09 — Autonomy in Weapon Systems (source summary) — CDAO operates under this policy framework
- related: Clawed — Anthropic-DoW conflict centers on CDAO's access to frontier AI
- related: Autonomous Weapons — CDAO deployment posture is distinct from the kinetic autonomy the directive governs