DIA Creates New Intelligence Powerhouse by Merging OSINT and Media Exploitation Centers

The Defense Intelligence Agency just made a big move in how the U.S. intelligence community handles open source information. DIA has merged two of its key organizations into a single unit called the National Digital Exploitation and Open Source Center (NDOC), and the early results are already turning heads.

What Got Combined and Why

The new center brings together the National Media Exploitation Center (NMEC) and the Open Source Intelligence Integration Center. If those names don’t ring a bell, here’s the quick version: NMEC was established back in 2001 to coordinate how the FBI, CIA, DIA, and other agencies analyzed documents, photographs, video, and other media collected by U.S. military forces in places like Afghanistan. The Open Source Intelligence Integration Center, meanwhile, was a newer outfit focused on internet-based OSINT and coordinating open source activities across the Defense Department.

According to Scott Kirkpatrick, DIA’s director for science and technology, both organizations were “very IT heavy, very data driven” and were already making some collaborative investments. But they weren’t making integrated investments in AI and machine learning, data dissemination, or sense-making. Combining them fixes that problem.

“We’ve combined those two organizations into the National Digital Exploitation and Open Source Center, and that is already paying off in great dividends,” Kirkpatrick said during a recent Intelligence and National Security Alliance webinar.

From Afghan Cave Documents to Chinese Strategic Competition

This merg er didn’t happen in a vacuum. NMEC spent two decades focused primarily on counterterrorism, sifting through hard drives, paper documents, and media seized during military operations. But as the U.S. shifted its strategic focus toward great power competition with China and Russia, NMEC needed to evolve.

Back in 2021, DIA’s then-chief of staff John Kirchhofer acknowledged that reality during an INSA event. “We are in the process right now of trying to define what it looks like for NMEC to succeed, when its primary focus is no longer on a terrorist hiding in a cave in Afghanistan,” he said. “We want what’s left of it to be really hyper-focused on strategic competition.”

Meanwhile, the intelligence community was waking up to the fact that open source intelligence deserved much more attention. Social media, commercial satellite imagery, flight-tracking data, and publicly available databases had become goldmines for intelligence analysts. DIA created the OSINT Integration Center to lead those efforts and coordinate OSINT activities across the entire Defense Department.

The AI Factor

There’s another piece to this story that makes the timing significant. DIA is going all-in on artificial intelligence. Last year, the agency launched “Task Force SABRE” to build foundational, enterprise-wide AI capabilities. That task force is now transitioning into what Kirkpatrick called a “digital modernization accelerator” with a hub-and-spoke model pushing AI adoption across DIA’s directorates.

By merging the NMEC and OSINT teams, DIA can make unified investments in AI tools that work across both captured media exploitation and open source collection. Instead of two separate teams building separate AI pipelines for similar data problems, you get one integrated team sharing resources, models, and insights.

DIA uses what it calls a “quality assurance framework” to make sure any AI it deploys is explainable and meets the agency’s tradecraft standards. Kirkpatrick said running AI systems through that framework helps analysts get past the natural hesitancy of trusting machine-generated intelligence. “The goal is to arm our analysts, our exploiters, our technicians, with the understanding they need to use AI responsibly,” he said.

New Leadership, New Direction

This reorganization coincides with a leadership change at DIA. Lt. Gen. James Adams, USMC, officially assumed directorship on February 20, 2026. A Naval Academy graduate with a computer science degree and over 300 combat flight hours as an AH-1W Super Cobra pilot, Adams brings a unique blend of technical and operational experience to the role.

Bradley Hansell, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, made it clear during the ceremony that DIA needs to modernize rapidly. He called on Adams to integrate more AI capabilities, automate processes, and find “novel, unique ways to scale our ability to collect against our toughest adversaries.”

The consolidation also came alongside workforce reductions under the Deferred Resignation Program and an efficiency review that identified redundancies. So this isn’t just about strategy. It’s also about doing more with less, a theme running through almost every corner of the Defense Department right now.

Why This Matters for the Broader IC

DIA’s move reflects a broader trend across the intelligence community. OSINT has gone from being treated as a supplementary source to being recognized as a core intelligence discipline. The volume of publicly available information has exploded, and agencies that can effectively fuse that data with classified sources will have a serious edge.

Critics might point out that consolidation can sometimes reduce specialization. The document exploitation experts at NMEC developed deep tradecraft over two decades of counterterrorism operations. Folding them into a broader organization risks diluting that expertise. Proponents counter that the synergies outweigh those risks, especially when AI can handle much of the heavy lifting that used to require specialized human analysts.

Key Takeaways

• DIA merged NMEC and the OSINT Integration Center into the new National Digital Exploitation and Open Source Center (NDOC), creating a unified approach to digital intelligence.
• AI is the driving force behind the consolidation. DIA wants integrated investments in machine learning and data analysis rather than duplicative efforts across separate teams.
• The shift from counterterrorism to great power competition demanded a new organizational model. NMEC’s legacy mission analyzing seized documents is being absorbed into a broader digital exploitation framework.
• New DIA Director Lt. Gen. James Adams takes charge with a mandate to modernize, automate, and scale intelligence collection against near-peer adversaries.

Watch the Full Episode

For a deeper dive on the Defense Intelligence Agency and its evolving mission, check out this episode of The NDS Show featuring former Acting DIA Director David Shedd: