Jack Shanahan

Retired US Air Force lieutenant general. Stood up Project Maven inside the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence in 2017, then was appointed founding director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) in 2018, serving until his retirement in 2020. Maven under his command became the canonical Pentagon-Silicon Valley collaboration — and the catalyst for the Google employee protests that led Google to drop the contract.

Built the Pentagon’s first cross-service AI organisation from a clean sheet, and is one of the few senior officers who can speak with authority on both the doctrine and the day-to-day mechanics of military AI delivery.