Pentagon stops using Anthropic AI tools months after blacklisting company, BBC told

Pentagon stops using Anthropic AI tools months after blacklisting company, BBC told

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has publicly criticised Anthropic's boss Dario Amodei

The US Department of Defence is no longer using Anthropic's AI tools, an official has told the BBC, months after it classified the company as a supply chain risk on national security grounds.

The Pentagon "has ceased the use of Anthropic products", the department official said in a statement.

Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth called Anthropic a supply chain risk in February, and said the Pentagon would stop using it by late August.

However, several people familiar with the situation told the BBC that as recently as last week Anthropic's Claude model was still being used by the department for research, analysis and intelligence gathering, as well as in military operations against Iran.

They said it was seen as an essential tool for sorting through huge amounts of information. Those people include former US defence officials and contractors who have worked closely with the Pentagon specifically on AI.

A spokesman for Anthropic declined to comment when asked about the Pentagon's statement.

The details of the defence department ending all use of Anthropic's tools had not been reported before.

Anthropic has been used by the US government and military since 2024 and was the first advanced AI company to have its tools deployed in government agencies carrying out classified work.

But earlier this year, the Pentagon urged it to remove its safety guardrails from Claude and give the military unrestricted access to its AI tools.

When Anthropic refused, citing fears of mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, Hegseth designated the company a "national security supply-chain risk" - a law usually reserved for companies based in countries considered a threat to the US.

Anthropic said the move was "unprecedented and unlawful" and has sued the Trump administration in an attempt to overturn the designation.

As the legal battle has continued in court, the Pentagon has signed contracts with other major tech companies, including Google, xAI and OpenAI.

According to two people familiar with AI use in the defence department, OpenAI tools have been more widely adopted in recent months in some military departments.

The Pentagon's statement to the BBC on Monday came after multiple people said in interviews that Claude was still being widely used in recent weeks.

Multiple sources said it was built into a larger data platform used by the Pentagon called Maven Smart System.

Maven, which is run by Palantir, is the Pentagon's main platform for organising intelligence and other data.

Lauren Kahn, a senior research analyst at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, said that because Claude was deeply integrated into Maven it would have been hard to remove it quickly from the system.

"The fact that it took the Pentagon until now to remove all use of Claude from across the system is indicative that these things are not just plug and play," she said.

"Once they become integrated it can be painful to remove them," added Kahn, a former US defence official.

Trump recently met with Anthropic boss Dario Amodei at the White House

The BBC spoke with defence contractors who specialise in AI and have worked closely with the Pentagon, as well as former US defence officials and others familiar with the Pentagon's use of artificial intelligence. Several spoke anonymously because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

When Hegseth first ordered Anthropic to be phased out of government, "there was concern with moving beyond Anthropic to OpenAI" and other tools, a former senior US defence official said.

Hegseth set a six-month deadline to phase out Anthropic on 27 February, one day before the US and Israel attacked Iran.

Pentagon employees continued using Anthropic's Claude tools, including its powerful Mythos models, "throughout the whole period of the controversy" with the company, one of the people said.

Claude was used especially for intelligence gathering and analysis, including through Palantir's Maven system, several sources said. Palantir, a leading defence tech firm, was founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, an ally of President Donald Trump.

Sources familiar with how the technology is used said analysts and other defence officials depend on Maven to access and organise visual data, including satellite imagery and drone footage.

That data was then fed into Claude and other large language models for tasks such as identifying possible military targets.

Officials often used the technology when preparing one-page briefs that were passed up the chain of command, according to a source who was given a demonstration of Maven by Palantir earlier this year.

Recent private demonstrations of Maven for government officials have also included Claude, another person familiar with Maven said.

The Maven system is deployed "across the entire department", Cameron Stanley, who leads AI work within the defence department, said during a demonstration of Maven earlier this year.

Maven is also used by some US allies to share intelligence with the Trump administration.

A current defence department official highlighted Maven's role in intelligence sharing in the war with Iran during a private briefing with industry leaders in Washington last week, according to a former US official who attended the meeting.

Anthropic's dispute with the Pentagon comes as relations with the White House appear to be improving. Trump met with Anthropic boss Dario Amodei twice at the White House last week.

After one of the meetings with Trump and other technology leaders, Amodei said he still had concerns about the risks posed by AI.

"How we address those risks is still under discussion," Amodei told reporters at the White House, as Trump stood beside him, but "if we work with the president, we can win safely".

Trump then praised Amodei, saying he was "great" and "fantastic."