- “Jonathan Elliott, Department of War director of the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell in the Chief Digital and AI Office, wants to evolve GenAI to give warfighters a decisive advantage in combat
- The DOW CDAO and Defense Innovation Unit had $100 million in appropriations spread out over FYs 2024 and 2025 to accelerate GenAI integration with operators
- Get partnership opportunities directly from Elliott during a panel discussion at the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit this coming Wednesday—March 18!
Jonathan Elliott is the Department of War’s point man for accelerating generative artificial intelligence use in combat. Elliott, DOW director of the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell in the Chief Digital and AI Office, is working to ensure the department advances with industry innovations so it always has an overwhelming advantage in warfare.
The AI RCC is putting transformative AI capabilities into operators’ hands to bolster their operational capabilities and decision making for both warfighting and enterprise use. One way is through the use of Gen AI-enabled chat applications, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, throughout DOW divisions, MeriTalk reported in June of last year.
“You can now ask anybody at their desk and now have this tool there to help them research, summarize information right for them,” Elliott said. “You see massive productivity gains from that.”
Get the latest DOW business opportunities in GenAI directly from Elliott at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit this Wednesday—March 18! Hear DOW GenAI research and investment priorities from Elliott and Dr. Dietrich Wiegmann, Army research directorate director, during the Effective, Excellent Enterprise AI Through Partnerships panel discussion. Few tickets remain—sign up today!
How Much Is the DOW CDAO Spending on AI?
The DOW CDAO and Defense Innovation Unit had $100 million in appropriations spread out over FYs 2024 and 2025 for investment in experimental research, pilot programs and operator-focused design to speed up genAI use. Elliott said the speed of development in frontier AI models, the largest and most advanced AI applications, had recently accelerated with models powering agentic workflows. These allowed a one query to start a complicated chain of autonomous actions.
Elliott gave an example of an initial prompt of “where are all the components in my motherboard” to an genAI application leading it to identify the hardware, search the web, retrieve documents, break out relevant data and put it all in a spreadsheet, all without any action beyond the initial prompt.
“That’s like a game-changing capability as we start diving into the fact that the DoD is one of the largest creators and holders of data in the world, and we need to leverage and access that data,” Elliott said.
Who Is Jonathan Elliott?
Jonathan Elliott is the director of the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell in the DOW’s CDAO. He has more than 10 years of experience working with advanced capabilities, including unmanned systems, autonomy and AI. He has a long history of federal technology experience, including positions at the DOW Joint AI Center, MITRE and the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, or NAWCAD.
Let’s dive into the Effective, Excellent Enterprise AI Through Partnerships panelists who will join Elliott in the critical discussion at the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit.
Matthew McDonald (moderator)
Vice President of Defense, Intel and Health; ECS
Matthew McDonald is a demonstrated leader in AI delivery and complex mission-partner integration. He has extensive expertise in designing secure AI services that bridge the gap between agency requirements and transformative industry capabilities.
McDonald led the creation of critical components of the Secure Unclassified Environment, or SUNet, system supporting the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Maven.
Maven integrated state-of-the-art computer vision and AI capabilities into a variety of military analytic workflows to automatically detect, identify, characterize, extract and attribute features and objects in video and imagery. This groundbreaking program provides trusted geospatial intelligence at speed and scale for object recognition.
Boost your FY 2026 emerging technology revenues by attending the Potomac Officer Club’s 2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit this Wednesday—March 18! Hear directly from Cameron Stanley, DOW CDAO, during his keynote address. Get your pressing questions answered during Stanley’s Q&A session. Secure your seat now!
Dr. Dietrich Wiegmann
Research Directorate Director, U.S. Army
Dr. Dietrich Wiegmann is a leading Army R&D expert in emerging technologies. He’s been in federal service since 2011, spending his first two years as the chief of the capabilities development branch of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO.
Wiegemann previously spent nearly 10 years in the private sector. He was a scientist for Ideal Innovations from 2008 to 2011, serving as a science and technology advisor for JIEDDO and evaluating, advising and directing technology efforts for counter-IED initiatives.
Wiegemann also served as a senior engineer at Alion Science from 2001 to 2008, advising on structural, radar, electronic and software changes to Navy ships. He applied materials, engineering and failure analysis expertise to fatigue, shock and corrosion failures on Navy combat ships and equipment.
Ashley Irwin
Senior Director of Alliances, Exiger
Ashley Irwin is a recognized expert in aligning cross-functional teams, creating new market opportunities and creating measurable business impact out of partnership strategy. She was previously director for public sector channel and alliances at Nintex from 2025 to 2026.
Irwin spent 16 months from 2024 to 2025 at Amazon Web Services, where she managed the largest independent software vendor partnership account, Salesforce, for cloud computing. Irwin spent nearly six years at SolarWinds in positions of increasing responsibility, culminating as the global director of channel sales from 2023 to 2024.
