DOD’s AI hub assembles new budget and programming cell to confront ‘pain points’
Personnel leading the Pentagon’s enterprise AI office are setting up a new Budget and Programming Cell amid the presidential transition, and made several previously undisclosed senior-level hires, according to an unclassified internal document recently obtained by DefenseScoop.
Defense Department leadership in 2021 kicked off a process to combine four organizations — the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Defense Digital Service (DDS), Office of the Chief Data Officer, and the Advana program — to form that hub, the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO). Led first by technology executive Craig Martell, and since early 2024 by its second permanent chief, acquisition expert Radha Plumb, the CDAO has moved to enable multiple high-stakes AI adoption pursuits for the Pentagon and military services during its early years.
Last month, Plumb shared new details with DefenseScoop about a recent organizational restructure inside the CDAO that’s been coming together as the Biden administration prepares to depart. She shed light on operations within the new AI Rapid Capabilities Cell and Advanced C2 Accelerator Cell.
There’s also now a nascent cell to coordinate and execute on budget and programming functions at the office, a document laying out how it’s currently organized shows.
“The Budget and Programming Cell has begun operating on an interim basis to conduct an analysis of organizational processes and pain points and will achieve full operating capacity early in 2025 after a permanent director is identified,” a DOD spokesperson said in a conversation over email last week.
That team and its to-be-named director are positioned to report to the CDAO’s Executive Director Chris Skaluba, the document revealed and the official confirmed.
“The Budget and Programming Cell will provide executive-level insight and enhanced oversight into CDAO’s budget priorities and programming objectives, to ensure CDAO budget execution aligns with the Department’s priorities for advancing data, analytics, and AI adoption,” the spokesperson told DefenseScoop.
They didn’t provide further details about what motivated the creation of this new group. A federal watchdog report released in November briefly mentioned concerns about budgeting overlaps between the CDAO and DOD’s Chief Information Office that were then beginning to be addressed.
Beyond that emerging cell, there are multiple other entities under Skaluba’s purview — including the CDAO’s Sensitive Intelligence Office, which the document suggests is led by Shane Partlow. The Pentagon spokesperson said that group serves as a liaison between the AI office’s leadership team and the intelligence community, but declined to provide further details on its portfolio.
In response to other questions based on the document, they confirmed that “Kaleb Redden, [a member of the Senior Executive Service] with experience in strategy development and international cooperation on key technologies, joined CDAO at the end of last year to run CDAO’s Policy Directorate.”
The spokesperson also acknowledged that President-elect Donald Trump’s agency review team has met with CDAO leadership as part of the transition in administrations.
