OpenAI has hired Daniel Driscoll, the former U.S. Army Secretary, as its new senior counselor for national security modernization — a newly created position at the company, CNBC reported Tuesday. The appointment gives the maker of ChatGPT a senior aide whose most recent government job put him at the top of the Army just as the Pentagon scrambled to work out how artificial intelligence fits into its operations.
In the role, Driscoll will focus on how artificial intelligence can be used to strengthen U.S. national security and cybersecurity, according to OpenAI. His updated LinkedIn profile already lists the new position. For readers tracking how quickly the frontier labs are embedding themselves in Washington's defense apparatus, this is another significant data point in our AI news coverage of the government-market collision.
What the New Role Covers
According to OpenAI, Driscoll will work with the company's senior leadership and external partners, with a particular focus on helping U.S. allies adopt advanced AI responsibly. That framing matters: rather than a narrow sales role, the position is designed to shape how allied governments — not just the Pentagon — integrate frontier models into sensitive workflows.
The company says Driscoll will engage government officials, industry leaders, academic institutions and allied organizations to advance what OpenAI calls "democratic AI," its shorthand for AI systems developed under U.S.-aligned governance norms. He will also help OpenAI's internal teams understand the operational needs of national security institutions, building on the company's existing Daybreak program, which focuses on strengthening cyber resilience and protecting essential services.
The scope is unusually broad for a counselor title. It spans procurement conversations, allied outreach, and internal product guidance — effectively making Driscoll a translator between the world's most valuable startup and the national security state.
What Altman and Driscoll Said
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman framed the hire as part of a larger geopolitical argument. The U.S. has "an extraordinary opportunity to work with other countries to spread the adoption of democratic AI," Altman said, adding that Driscoll's appointment would help strengthen American leadership in the technology.
Driscoll, for his part, pointed to the accelerating pace of change. "National security requirements are changing faster than at any time in the past fifty years," he said. He argued AI could help reduce paperwork, process information and deliver answers more quickly to the people working inside national security institutions — the unglamorous bureaucratic friction that, in his telling, slows down everything from logistics to threat assessment.
A Rapid Rise Through the Pentagon
Driscoll's path to OpenAI ran through one of the most turbulent stretches of civil-military relations in recent memory. He stepped down as Army secretary earlier this year after months of reported tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to CNBC.
An Iraq war veteran, Driscoll built his Pentagon tenure around modernization, with a particular emphasis on expanding access to drone and counter-drone technologies among U.S. allies, according to a previous U.S. Army announcement. That portfolio put him in regular contact with foreign defense ministries — relationships OpenAI presumably hopes to leverage as it courts international customers.
His diplomatic file is also notable. Driscoll met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv in November 2025 to discuss a U.S.-proposed peace plan aimed at ending the war with Russia, according to a statement from the Ukrainian presidential office. Few technology executives arrive with that kind of direct experience negotiating high-stakes matters with wartime leadership.
The Financial Times, which also reported the hire, framed it as part of a broader pattern: the U.S. military is actively seeking to expand its use of AI, and the labs are racing to meet it with dedicated government-facing teams.
Why OpenAI Is Building a Government Bench
The hire fits into a visible strategy. Frontier AI companies have spent the past two years standing up defense and national security programs, hiring former officials, and tailoring enterprise offerings for classified and regulated environments. A senior counselor with a sitting former service secretary's résumé signals that OpenAI wants institutional credibility, not just contracts.
For OpenAI, the timing is delicate. The company is navigating intense competition with rivals courting the same government customers, regulatory scrutiny on multiple fronts, and an election-season debate in the U.S. over how AI platforms handle political content. Adding a national security figure with bipartisan government experience gives the company a credible voice in those rooms.
For the Pentagon and allied governments, the appeal is different: direct access to frontier models, and an executive liaison who understands both procurement politics and the reality of what current AI systems can and cannot do.
What Comes Next
Neither OpenAI nor Driscoll has detailed the specific programs he will touch first, and the company has not said how the new role will interact with its existing enterprise and safety organizations. What is clear is the direction of travel: the boundary between Silicon Valley's AI labs and the U.S. national security establishment keeps getting thinner, and both sides are now staffing for it deliberately.
As allied governments weigh which AI providers to trust with sensitive workloads, appointments like this one are how the frontier labs make their case. Watch for allied-nation announcements, defense pilot programs, and expanded cyber initiatives to follow.
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