Pentagon says it has stopped using Anthropic's AI tools — but BBC sources say Claude was in use until last week

WASHINGTON — The US Department of Defence is no longer using Anthropic’s AI tools, an official told the BBC in a statement on Monday, months after Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a supply-chain risk on national security grounds.

“The Pentagon has ceased the use of Anthropic products,” the department official said, according to the BBC, which was told the move followed a six-month phase-out Hegseth ordered on 27 February.

But the claim of a clean break is contradicted by the BBC’s own reporting. Multiple people familiar with the matter 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 — and in military operations against Iran. It was viewed as a critical tool for sorting through vast quantities of information, the people said, and included former US defence officials and contractors who have worked closely with the Pentagon on AI.

Claude was embedded in the Pentagon’s primary data platform, Maven Smart System, which is operated by Palantir, several sources said. Lauren Kahn, a senior research analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a former US defence official, said deep integration explained the delay: “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.”

The dispute began when the Pentagon pressed Anthropic to remove Claude’s safety guardrails and grant the military unfettered access. Anthropic refused, citing concerns over mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, and Hegseth then invoked a supply-chain-risk designation normally reserved for companies in hostile countries. Anthropic called the move “unprecedented and unlawful” and sued; the D.C. Circuit upheld the designation on 25 September.

As the legal fight played out, the Pentagon signed contracts with Google, xAI and OpenAI. OpenAI tools have been more widely adopted in recent months in some military departments, according to two people familiar with AI use in the defence department. An Anthropic spokesman declined to comment on the Pentagon’s statement.

The timing is awkward for the White House: Trump met Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei twice at the White House last week, praising him as “great” and “fantastic” while Amodei said how to address AI’s risks “is still under discussion” but “if we work with the president, we can win safely”.

Sources

• https://www.myjoyonline.com/pentagon-stops-using-anthropic-ai-tools-after-blacklisting-company-bbc-told/ (BBC reporting)
• https://runtimewire.com/article/pentagon-stops-anthropic-claude-use-maven-phaseout
• https://aistockwire.com/blog/pentagon-stops-using-anthropic-claude-maven-palantir-pltr-october-2026