Scott Swanson brings an uncommon combination to the defense, entertainment, and publishing AI sector: three decades of intelligence operations, enterprise technology leadership, and hands-on AI innovation, as well as a successful career as a music and fiction writer. His path to founding Blacksite AI reflects a career spent at the intersection of national security, creativity, and emerging technology.
For over two decades, Swanson served as a recognized authority on Iran and the IRGC Qods Force, specializing in irregular warfare analysis. His operational support spanned the Intelligence Community, SOCOM J2, J3X, JSOC, DIA, and multiple Theater Special Operations Commands, with a focus on social network disruption and counterterrorism operations.
Working with U.S. Army Special Operations Command's Sensitive Activities Division, he developed concepts for the Technical Support Working Group and provided direct support to units requiring authentic operational intelligence. This experience gave him firsthand knowledge of how intelligence professionals analyze threats and make decisions under operational constraints—understanding that now informs Blacksite AI's approach to defense applications.
Swanson's educational background reflects the multidisciplinary demands of modern intelligence work:
His analytical work has earned recognition across the defense community. Co-authored pieces with Lieutenant General William Boykin on intelligence operationalization and Major General David Grange on irregular warfare have been cited by institutions including the Naval Postgraduate School, Joint Special Operations University, and U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
Regular contributions to Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, Small Wars Journal, and Special Warfare magazine have established him as a consistent voice on evolving intelligence challenges.
He has ten published fiction works from thrillers, espionage, to psychological suspense, including the Sean Havens Black Ops series and the Task Force Orange series.
As a Fortune 500 cybersecurity consulting practice leader, with impactful roles at Oracle, SAP, Deloitte, and PwC, Swanson translated intelligence methodologies into scalable technology and market disruption solutions. His work helping drive client services regarding AI and machine learning for enterprise risk management and cybersecurity provided crucial experience in data governance, compliance frameworks, and operational deployment at scale.
This corporate experience taught him how specialized knowledge must be structured for practical application—a lesson central to Blacksite AI's approach and dataset integrity.
Swanson's AI journey began unexpectedly through creative hobby work as a songwriter. Teaching himself AI tools for music sound production revealed both the potential and limitations of current training methodologies. The key insight: his decades of intelligence work had essentially been "manual AI"—parsing indicators, identifying patterns, tracking scenarios, and shaping outcomes. This, coupled with his own novels and other written works, being illegally downloaded for learning models.
This realization sparked Blacksite AI's founding premise: AI systems trained on authentic intelligence data and frameworks could scale analytical processes across multiple domains—from defense and intelligence to entertainment and gaming, where authentic tradecraft and strategic thinking drive compelling narratives. However, humans remain at the cornerstone of voice and instinctive decisioning.
Blacksite AI represents the practical application of Swanson's and key collaborators' converged expertise across multiple industries. His intelligence background provides authentic source material that cannot be replicated through web scraping. His academic foundation ensures proper analytical frameworks. His published work validates credibility. His enterprise experience enables scalable implementation.
For defense and intelligence applications, his operational understanding allows him to curate training data that reflects how intelligence work actually functions. For gaming studios, publishers, and film/TV production, this same expertise delivers authentic tradecraft, realistic scenarios, proper curation, and strategic depth that elevate storytelling beyond Hollywood clichés.
The company's unique position stems from recognizing that authentic intelligence thinking—whether applied to national security, game design, thriller writing, or writers' room development—requires the same foundational understanding of how professionals analyze, plan, and execute complex operations.
Swanson maintains active involvement in the intelligence and defense communities through memberships in:
He continues to publish under both his name and the pen name J.T. Patten, bridging operational expertise with emerging technology perspectives.
Blacksite AI addresses critical gaps across multiple sectors:
His unique background—combining decades of intelligence experience with practical technology implementation and creative industry engagement—positions the company to deliver AI capabilities that meet the exacting standards of both classified operations and compelling entertainment.
In an era where AI promises often exceed capabilities, Swanson's approach is grounded in operational reality: building tools that enhance how professionals actually work, whether they're planning missions, designing game scenarios, crafting novels, or developing television series that ring true.
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