Pentagon tells BBC it has stopped using Anthropic's Claude

A US Department of Defence official has told the BBC the Pentagon "has ceased the use of Anthropic products," months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the AI company a "national security supply-chain risk" and set a six-month phase-out.

The February designation followed Anthropic's refusal to lift safety guardrails on autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. Anthropic sued the Trump administration, calling the move "unprecedented and unlawful"; a federal appeals court sided with the Pentagon in September.

Multiple BBC sources say Claude was still being used by the department as recently as last week, including in military operations against Iran, via Palantir's Maven Smart System. That cuts against what Emil Michael, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said on September 11: "I'd say about 90% has transitioned. All of the Maven Smart Systems or Palantir work has been transitioned months ago."

Lauren Kahn, a former US defense official now at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told the BBC: "Once they become integrated it can be painful to remove them."

The Pentagon has since signed agreements with Google, xAI and OpenAI. Anthropic declined to comment.