Jonathan Spencer appointed to role of Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer for the USPTO

ALEXANDRIA, VA-America's Innovation Agency, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), announces the appointment of Jonathan Spencer as the Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer (CAIO).

As CAIO, Spencer will oversee artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technology matters within the agency. In this role, he will ensure that the USPTO deploys innovative technologies in service of innovators and work with agency leadership to modernize, develop, and deploy AI systems and technology.

"I am delighted to welcome Spencer as the USPTO's CAIO as his depth of experience in AI, machine learning, and emerging technologies will be invaluable as we continue to aggressively modernize our systems and workflows to serve America's innovators," said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Director John A. Squires. "Jonathan will help us ensure that the USPTO remains at the forefront of deploying innovative technologies and advancing the mission of American ingenuity."

Spencer brings years of research and industry experience spanning AI and machine learning, language modeling, robotics, and electrical engineering. Prior to joining the USPTO, Spencer spent four years at Waymo building state-of-the-art autonomous driving logic that helped the team scale their driving platform from 5,000 fully driverless miles per week to 5 million. In his work at Waymo, he built safety-critical AI models for predicting behaviors of other agents, road conditions, and the consequences of different driving decisions. Spencer's experience also includes leadership roles as co-founder and chief technology officer for multiple startups applying AI to healthcare, hardware testing, and telecommunications.

Spencer earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from Princeton University, where his research pioneered imitation learning algorithms for human-in-the-loop training of physical AI systems. He is a passionate educator, lecturing on subjects ranging from reinforcement learning and AI to electrical engineering and radar signal processing, an area where he received his first patent for phased array radar design. Spencer also holds bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Brigham Young University.