In October 2016, the United States announced the release of the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan, which lays out a strategic plan for Federally-funded research and development in AI. As a coleader of the Task Force that developed this plan, I was asked to discuss its creation in an invited presentation at AAAI 2017. This article is based on that presentation, which outlines not only the Plan itself, but also provides insight into its goals and objectives, and background on how the Plan was created.