Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) Activities

Mission — Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) Activities source

The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) supports the Department's initiatives to build an enduring competitive advantage, while forging a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem. The CDAO is responsible for strengthening and integrating data, artificial intelligence, and digital solutions in the Department in support of the interim National Defense Strategy and Section 1513 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2023. The CDAO Responsible AI (RAI) Division ensures the Department is provided with the technical tools and resources efficiently assess and assure its AI-enabled capabilities, to support rapid fielding of capabilities that are lethal, performant, and reliable. The CDAO RAI Division supports the strategic priority of addressing institutional management priorities, the strategic objective of strengthening governance and removing policy barriers, and the performance goal of overseeing the development, acquisition, testing, and integration of Responsible AI and AI Assurance tools and processes across the DoD, as outlined by the Responsible AI Strategy & Implementation Pathway (S&IP). The CDAO Responsible AI (RAI) Division is the Department’s lead for Responsible AI and AI Assurance, including managing the Department’s AI Assurance Portal (which provides access to the AI testing and monitoring tools, resources, and artifacts from across the Department), leading the development of technical tools, best practices, resources, governance, and strategy & policy guidance related to responsible AI and AI Assurance; and leads the Department’s work on AI Assurance Policy (established by the CDAO Charter). The RAI Division fulfills the functions of both RAI Capability Development and the building of an RAI Customer Ecosystem. The RAI Division provides critical tools and infrastructure and best practices to all DoD Partners. This includes the building and release of the RAI Toolkit and RAI Toolkit Web Application, the AI Assurance Portal, DoD Data and Model Card Templates and supporting software, the DoD’s Frontier AI Red Teaming Program (for the AI RCC), technical guardrails and benchmarks for Frontier AI, enterprise-wide AI Assurance Tools, RAI & AI Assurance support to the Services, the development and validation of the Department’s AI Assurance policies, and various technical resources for topics including Red Teaming, Human Machine Teaming, Stakeholder Engagement, Risk Management, etc. Additionally, CDAO RAI Division has built and continues to grow the DoD RAI Ecosystem, through chairing the Department’s RAI Working Council, leading the DoD’s RAI Community of Interest, Chairing (through appointment by the White House) the Federal Government’s CAIO AI Risk Management Working Group, co-chairing NATO’s working group on AI Assurance, and leadership of other AI Assurance projects and bodies within the inter-agency and internationally. In FY26 and beyond, the CDAO RAI Division will continue to integrate best practices and guidelines on developing AI technologies and build them into modular RAI Toolkits and to address specific Use Cases addressed to the Department’s most urgent needs around lethality and efficiency. This work will be highlighted in FY25, as the RAI Division will run multiple RAI Toolkit validation experiments and pilots with our DoD partners, integrate those lessons learned into RAI Toolkit V2, while providing specific Toolkits to address frontier AI and DoDD 3000.09 Autonomy in Weapon Systems. Throughout the FYDP, RAI Division will continue to build and integrate the RAI Ecosystem, through industry, inter-agency, and international leadership including leading the stand up of a collaboration with the leading AI Labs on frontier AI Red Teaming (in support of the AI RCC), standing up a frontier AI policy experimentation and validation initiative with the leading AI Labs, chairing the Federal Government’s Chief AI Officer Council Risk Practices Working Group (which sets the recommended risk process and resources for the government to meet White House policy and requirements), and the RAI Development Group (RAIDG) (which provides technical and developer support on key RAI issues to priority DoD projects).

Mission — Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Technologies source

The RAI Division fulfills the functions of both RAI Capability Development and the building of an RAI Customer Ecosystem. The RAI Division provides critical tools and infrastructure and best practices to all DoD Partners. This includes the building and release of the RAI Toolkit and RAI Toolkit Web Application, the DoD’s AI Assurance Portal, DoD Data and Model Card Templates and supporting software, the DoD’s Frontier AI Red Teaming Program (for the AI RCC), technical guardrails and benchmarks for Frontier AI, enterprise-wide AI Assurance Tools, RAI & AI Assurance support to the Services, the development and validation of the Department’s AI Assurance policies, and various technical resources for topics including Red Teaming, Human Machine Teaming, Stakeholder Engagement, Risk Management, etc. Additionally, the CDAO RAI Division has built and continues to grow the DoD RAI Ecosystem, through chairing the Department’s RAI Working Council, leading the DoD’s RAI Community of Interest, co-chairing NATO’s AI Assurance body, leading the DoD’s RAI Academic Council, and chairing (by appointment of the White House) the working group responsible for assembling the process and resources for the inter-agency to comply with White House AI Risk Requirements.

Mission — Responsible AI source

The RAI Division fulfills the functions of both RAI Capability Development and the building of an RAI Customer Ecosystem. The RAI Division provides critical tools and infrastructure and best practices to all DoD Partners. This includes the building and release of the RAI Toolkit and RAI Toolkit Web Application, the DoD’s AI Assurance Portal, DoD Data and Model Card Templates and supporting software, the DoD’s Frontier AI Red Teaming Program (for the AI RCC), technical guardrails and benchmarks for Frontier AI, enterprise-wide AI Assurance Tools, RAI & AI Assurance support to the Services, the development and validation of the Department’s AI Assurance policies, and various technical resources for topics including Red Teaming, Human Machine Teaming, Stakeholder Engagement, Risk Management, etc. Additionally, the CDAO RAI Division has built and continues to grow the DoD RAI Ecosystem, through chairing the Department’s RAI Working Council, leading the DoD’s RAI Community of Interest, co-chairing NATO’s AI Assurance body, leading the DoD’s RAI Academic Council, and chairing (by appointment of the White House) the working group responsible for assembling the process and resources for the inter-agency to comply with White House AI Risk Requirements.

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (2)