What happened
The Pentagon banned Anthropic models from its Genai.mil initiative, citing company policies prohibiting surveillance and autonomous weapons. Hours later, OpenAI announced an agreement to deploy ChatGPT on classified networks for the Department of Defense's "all lawful uses." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated the company also prohibits domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, principles reflected in the agreement. The Pentagon will continue using Anthropic models for up to six months while seeking alternatives.
Why it matters
Access to frontier models for defence applications now hinges on vendor policy alignment with military use cases. Procurement teams face immediate vendor lock-in risk, as the Pentagon will transition from Anthropic models within six months. This follows prior reports of Anthropic's strained relationship with the Trump administration over AI regulation and its stance on military applications, demonstrating a clear divergence in acceptable use policies among leading AI developers.
Subscribe for Weekly Updates
Stay ahead with our weekly AI and tech briefings, delivered every Tuesday.
