{"id":241814,"date":"2026-05-08T13:36:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T13:45:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:45:06","slug":"ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide\/","title":{"rendered":"AI &#038; Data Exchange 2026: CDAO\u2019s Andrew Mapes on accelerating AI adoption departmentwide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/artificial-intelligence\/2026\/05\/ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide\/\">AI &#038; Data Exchange 2026: CDAO\u2019s Andrew Mapes on accelerating AI adoption departmentwide<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/artificial-intelligence\/2026\/05\/ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide\/\">https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/artificial-intelligence\/2026\/05\/ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-08 13:36:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"federalnewsnetwork.com\">federalnewsnetwork.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"AI &amp; Data Exchange: Pentagon Speeds AI Adoption Through Enterprise Alignment  - Part 1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/M1SKw7f2AJ4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon\u2019s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office has been in a period of transition since the department folded it into the Office of the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering last year. Previously, CDAO reported directly to the deputy secretary of Defense, and some analysts warned the move could sideline or bury AI efforts within the organization.<\/p>\n<p>But Andrew Mapes, acting principal deputy chief digital and AI officer, said the move is doing the opposite: It is positioning CDAO to move quickly to deliver AI capabilities at scale across the department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the continued unification of the innovation ecosystem under the chief technology officer, I think there\u2019s been a great opportunity for us to just continue to move much more quickly. The realignment within the Chief Technology Office has enabled us to be much more focused on execution of capability and really working with stakeholders to identify what those enterprise needs are for the department,\u201d Mapes said during <strong>Federal News Network\u2019s AI &#038; Data Exchange 2026<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmall things like not having to maintain an enterprise business office just for our own organization and really getting us laser-focused on delivering capability to the warfighter \u2014 that\u2019s, I think, for me, one of the biggest positive changes that we\u2019ve had since we\u2019ve realigned within the CTO. I know there was a concern about moving AI down. But if anything, I think it\u2019s made it more prominent, and it\u2019s freed us up to move much more quickly to be able to execute the AI strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Looking to reduce duplicative tech efforts<\/h2>\n<p>Last year, Under Secretary for Research and Engineering Emil Michael consolidated several innovation organizations \u2014 including the Defense Innovation Unit \u2014 arguing the Pentagon\u2019s innovation ecosystem had become fragmented, with overlapping responsibilities&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/artificial-intelligence\/2026\/05\/ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI &#038; Data Exchange 2026: CDAO\u2019s Andrew Mapes on accelerating AI adoption departmentwide https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/artificial-intelligence\/2026\/05\/ai-data-exchange-2026-cdaos-andrew-mapes-on-accelerating-ai-adoption-departmentwide\/ Publish&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241816,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241814\/revisions\/241816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}