Research Note: Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Strategic Transformation of DoD AI Capabilities
Executive Summary
The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) ceased to exist as an independent organization on June 1, 2022, when it was merged with other digital initiatives into the newly formed Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO). This consolidation combined the JAIC with the Defense Digital Service, the Office of the Chief Data Officer, and the Advana program from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller). The reorganization was part of a broader Pentagon strategy to create a more cohesive approach to digital transformation and AI adoption across the Department of Defense. The CDAO structure was designed to eliminate silos between previously separate digital initiatives and create a more streamlined reporting structure directly under the Deputy Secretary of Defense. This organizational change represented an evolution rather than an abandonment of the JAIC's mission, with many of its key initiatives and principles continuing under the new organizational structure.
The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) was established in June 2018 as a pivotal organization within the U.S. Department of Defense to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies across military domains. The JAIC was created to transform the DoD by centralizing AI initiatives, expanding their impact at scale, and ensuring responsible development aligned with American values. Under the leadership of its initial director, Lt. Gen. John "Jack" Shanahan, the JAIC coordinated numerous AI projects focused on enhancing military capabilities in aerospace, defense, predictive maintenance, logistics, and cybersecurity. Despite its initial prominence, the JAIC ceased to exist as an independent organization on June 1, 2022, when it was merged with other digital initiatives into the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO). During its operational period, the JAIC made significant contributions to establishing the foundation for AI adoption across the defense sector, developing the Joint Common Foundation as a cloud-based platform enabling AI development, and implementing responsible AI principles that continue to guide DoD's approach to this transformative technology.
Source: Fourester Research
Nand Mulchandani Quotations
"I think the mission of the agency is done tech for a long, long, long, long, long time."
"Making war a software problem."
"The JAIC has moved from being AI pioneers to being AI practitioners."
"We as a customer need to be like VC fund my life. There's so much private capital out there building all this amazing stuff. Why should we be investing in [it]?"
"AI is like what I call the crazy drunk friend."
"I call this the million monkeys at a typewriter. You can't pick the specific monkey that is going to crank out Shakespeare."
"Victory lies not in the weapons themselves... but in AI algorithms that advise commanders on how best to wield them."
"It is a fantastic example of an app that we were able to rapidly deploy and get out to production in a cheaper, faster fashion." (Referring to an AI application developed at the CIA)
"Nand Mulchandani has been an extraordinary patriot, technologist and friend." (Statement about Mulchandani when he stepped down as JAIC CTO)
"The JAIC has six mission initiatives underway that are all making exciting progress."
Corporate Overview
The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center was founded in June 2018 through a memorandum issued by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan with the mission to "transform the US Department of Defense by accelerating the delivery and adoption of AI to achieve mission impact at scale." Initially positioned under the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DoD CIO), the JAIC was later elevated to report directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, reflecting its strategic importance. The JAIC's structure was built around both National Mission Initiatives (NMIs) - broad, cross-cutting AI challenges driven by the center - and Component Mission Initiatives (CMIs) which were led by individual military components but supported by JAIC resources and expertise.
The JAIC was headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, with Lt. Gen. John "Jack" Shanahan serving as its inaugural director, bringing significant experience from his previous role overseeing Project Maven, the DoD's first major AI initiative. Funding for the JAIC demonstrated the DoD's commitment to AI as a strategic priority, with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin committing $1.5 billion for the center over a five-year period. This substantial investment reflected the Pentagon's recognition of AI as a critical capability in maintaining military advantages against competitors like China, which had openly stated ambitions to become the world leader in AI by 2030.
The JAIC underwent an organizational evolution in late 2020 under Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, who implemented what was known as "JAIC 2.0" - shifting from being primarily a product delivery organization to becoming an "enabling force" that supported AI initiatives across the military. This strategic pivot aimed to increase the pace and scale of AI adoption throughout the Department by focusing on infrastructure development, pathfinder capabilities, and broader enablement rather than direct product creation. The JAIC's final organizational phase came in 2022 when it was consolidated with the Defense Digital Service, the Chief Data Officer, and the Advana program to form the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), which reached initial operational capability on February 1, 2022.
Source: Fourester Research
Management Analysis
The JAIC's leadership team brought significant technical expertise and strategic vision to the organization during its operational lifespan. Lt. Gen. John "Jack" Shanahan, who led the DoD's Project Maven before becoming the JAIC's inaugural director, established the center's initial direction and operational framework. His experience with AI implementation in military settings provided crucial insights for navigating the complex technological and ethical landscape. Shanahan frequently emphasized the transformative potential of AI for national security while also acknowledging the necessity of developing these capabilities responsibly and ethically.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, who took over as JAIC director in October 2020, implemented significant organizational changes through what became known as "JAIC 2.0." Under Groen's leadership, the center shifted from directly delivering AI products to becoming an enabling organization that supported AI implementation across the DoD. Groen brought a strategic vision focused on scaling AI capabilities throughout defense operations rather than creating isolated successful projects. This pivot demonstrated the leadership team's adaptability and recognition that transforming the entire defense ecosystem required a different approach than initially envisioned. Nand Mulchandani also served as acting director during a transitional period, bringing commercial technology expertise that complemented the military leadership's perspective, particularly in areas of software development and product management approaches from the private sector.
Technical Architecture
The centerpiece of JAIC's technical infrastructure was the Joint Common Foundation (JCF), a cloud-based platform designed to accelerate AI development across the Department of Defense. The JCF functioned as a platform-as-a-service capability, providing developers with access to curated data sets, AI development tools, testing environments, and reusable code libraries. This shared infrastructure enabled DoD components to avoid duplicating foundational AI development work, instead focusing on mission-specific applications and use cases. The JCF was built in collaboration with the Air Force's Platform One, leveraging DevSecOps practices to ensure both agility and security.
JAIC's architecture emphasized the importance of data readiness as the foundation for effective AI implementation. The Data Readiness for Artificial Intelligence Development (DRAID) initiative established standardized processes for data curation, cleaning, labeling, and governance - essential prerequisites for training reliable AI models. The center deployed a microservices architecture that allowed for modular development and integration, facilitating implementation across diverse military systems. Security-by-design principles were embedded throughout the architecture, with specific attention to adversarial machine learning threats that could potentially compromise AI systems through data poisoning or model manipulation.
The JAIC developed an innovative "integration layer" for AI algorithms that enabled defense organizations to rapidly build and deploy AI solutions. This architectural approach allowed AI capabilities to be composed from modular components rather than built as monolithic applications, significantly accelerating development cycles. The architecture supported both edge computing for tactical deployments with limited connectivity and cloud-based processing for applications with substantial computational requirements. Test and evaluation frameworks were integrated into the development pipeline, ensuring AI systems were rigorously assessed for performance, reliability, and compliance with DoD's ethical AI principles before deployment to operational environments.
Strengths
The JAIC established itself as the centralized hub for AI development within the Department of Defense, creating organizational coherence for previously scattered initiatives. This consolidated approach allowed for standardization of AI practices, elimination of duplicative efforts, and strategic direction for AI investment across all military branches. The center successfully implemented the Joint Common Foundation, providing a common development environment that accelerated AI projects by offering pre-vetted tools, data management capabilities, and reusable components. The JAIC's development of systematic processes for data readiness addressed one of the fundamental challenges in military AI applications - the need for properly structured, labeled, and governed data sets suitable for training effective models.
The JAIC played a pivotal role in developing the DoD's ethical AI principles, establishing a framework that balanced technological advancement with responsible use. This work positioned the U.S. military's AI development in alignment with American values while providing practical guidelines for implementation. The center fostered partnerships across government, industry, academia, and international allies, creating a collaborative ecosystem that accelerated innovation while ensuring interoperability. Through its AI Partnership for Defense program, the JAIC facilitated cooperation with 16 partner nations, establishing a foundation for multinational AI development and shared ethical frameworks.
The JAIC's shift from direct product development to becoming an enabling organization in its "JAIC 2.0" phase demonstrated strategic adaptability, recognizing that long-term impact required empowering the broader defense ecosystem rather than creating isolated capabilities. This evolution showed an organizational maturity that prioritized mission outcomes over institutional growth. The center also developed significant expertise in AI testing and evaluation, creating methodologies for assessing AI performance in military contexts where traditional software testing approaches were insufficient. This work established benchmarks and processes that continue to guide DoD AI validation practices even after the JAIC's reorganization into the CDAO.
Weaknesses
The JAIC faced significant organizational challenges during its brief existence, with multiple leadership transitions and strategic pivots that sometimes created discontinuity in execution. The shift from "JAIC 1.0" to "JAIC 2.0" under new leadership, while strategically sound, created temporary disruption as priorities and operational approaches were realigned. The center also encountered difficulty balancing its dual mandate of both developing AI capabilities for immediate military needs while simultaneously building the foundational infrastructure for long-term AI adoption. This tension between tactical delivery and strategic enablement sometimes resulted in resources being stretched thin across too many initiatives.
The JAIC struggled with talent acquisition and retention in a highly competitive AI labor market, where private sector compensation packages significantly outpaced government offerings. This challenge limited the center's ability to build internal technical capabilities at the pace required by its ambitious mission. Bureaucratic procurement processes also hindered the JAIC's ability to rapidly contract with cutting-edge AI vendors, creating friction in technology adoption and sometimes resulting in implementations that lagged behind commercial state-of-the-art. The center also faced significant integration challenges when implementing AI systems into legacy defense platforms that were not designed with machine learning capabilities in mind.
Cultural resistance to AI adoption within some segments of the defense establishment created additional hurdles for the JAIC's mission. Military and civilian defense personnel sometimes approached AI initiatives with skepticism, particularly regarding reliability, explainability, and appropriate levels of human oversight. The JAIC's organizational positioning evolved during its existence, but questions remained about whether it had sufficient authority and resources to drive transformation across the entire defense enterprise. These structural limitations became evident enough that DoD leadership ultimately decided to reorganize digital and AI capabilities under the new Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office in 2022, effectively ending the JAIC's existence as an independent entity.
Client Voice
Defense organizations that worked with the JAIC reported significant value from its enabling capabilities, particularly the Joint Common Foundation platform which reduced AI development timelines by standardizing infrastructure and eliminating duplicative work. Military units implementing AI solutions noted that JAIC's guidance on responsible AI implementation helped navigate ethical considerations while still meeting operational requirements. The U.S. Air Force credited JAIC-supported predictive maintenance AI with reducing aircraft downtime and maintenance costs by identifying potential failures before they occurred, directly improving readiness metrics.
Military commanders highlighted the JAIC's ability to bridge the gap between technical AI capabilities and operational military needs, translating between these different domains to ensure solutions addressed real-world requirements. However, some defense components expressed frustration with the initial pace of AI implementation, noting that the JAIC's evolution from direct product delivery to enabling capability created temporary confusion about roles and responsibilities. Several military partners also identified challenges in data preparation as a significant hurdle, with JAIC support on data governance and management being especially valuable but sometimes insufficient to overcome entrenched data silos.
International partners in the AI Partnership for Defense program consistently praised the JAIC's leadership in establishing ethical frameworks and shared approaches to military AI development. These collaborative efforts were seen as crucial for developing interoperable capabilities while ensuring alignment with democratic values. However, defense contractors working with the JAIC sometimes reported challenges navigating the center's evolving priorities and processes, particularly during the transition to "JAIC 2.0" and later during the reorganization into the CDAO. Despite these challenges, clients broadly affirmed that the JAIC accelerated the DoD's AI adoption curve and established foundations that continue to support defense AI initiatives, even after the organizational restructuring.
Bottom Line
The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center served as a critical catalyst for the Department of Defense's adoption of artificial intelligence, establishing organizational structures, technical foundations, and ethical frameworks that continue to guide military AI development. The JAIC successfully shifted the Pentagon's approach to AI from disconnected individual projects to a coordinated strategic capability, positioning artificial intelligence as a fundamental element of future military advantage. While the center's independent existence was relatively brief (2018-2022), its incorporation into the broader Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office represents an evolution rather than a termination of its mission, with many of its key initiatives continuing under the new organizational structure.
The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) was established in December 2021 and reached full operational capability on June 1, 2022, representing the Pentagon's strategic effort to unify multiple technology organizations under a single leadership structure. This consolidation merged the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Defense Digital Service, Office of the Chief Data Officer, and the Advana analytics platform to eliminate organizational silos and create a more cohesive approach to digital transformation across the Department of Defense. As a Principal Staff Assistant reporting directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the CDAO is charged with accelerating the adoption of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence "from the boardroom to the battlefield" to maintain military advantage in an increasingly technology-driven security environment. The organization has evolved through multiple leadership transitions, including Dr. Craig Martell (2022-2024), Dr. Radha Plumb (2024-2025), and currently Dr. Douglas Matty, while developing initiatives like the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell, Task Force Lima for generative AI, and international partnerships through the AI Partnership for Defense program. This organizational restructuring reflects the DoD's recognition that digital capabilities and artificial intelligence are essential strategic assets requiring coordinated development, governance frameworks, and responsible implementation to preserve American military superiority in an era of intensifying technological competition.