The United States is reportedly relying on the artificial intelligence tool Claude to support its offensive against Iran, shortly after US President Donald Trump announced that the military would no longer use the tool.
The Wall Street Journal and Axios reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, said the announcement came amid a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation against the Iranian regime. On the first day of the operation on Saturday, the strikes hit various targets in Iran and killed the country’s longtime supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
According to reports, the US military used Claude, made by AI company Anthropic, to assist in the attack that day. The newspaper reported that the military uses the tool to assess intelligence, identify targets and simulate combat scenarios.
The Journal’s report said the AI model was “integrated” into US military operations, and Claude was reportedly previously used when the US captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.
But on Friday, the day before the U.S. and Israeli attacks began, President Trump ordered “all federal agencies of the U.S. government to immediately cease using Anthropic’s technology” in a social media post.
Anthropic and the White House have been at odds since the company refused to lift safeguards on Claude that would have allowed it to be used unrestricted by the Pentagon for national security purposes. According to reports, Anthropic was concerned that the United States was using its tools to monitor American citizens and enable autonomous weapons.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote in a post on X that he had ordered the department to “designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk to national security.”
“Effective immediately, any contractor, supplier, or partner doing business with the U.S. military may not engage in any commercial activity with Anthropic,” he added.
Anthropic said in a statement on Saturday that it “has made clear that it supports all lawful uses of AI for national security.”
Anthropic’s contract with the U.S. Department of Defense is worth up to $200 million, according to the Journal. Both Hegseth and Trump said the Pentagon will continue to work with Anthropic for up to six months until Anthropic phases out its services. That effort appears to include support for operations in Iran.
Shortly after Friday’s announcement, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company had reached an agreement with the Department of Defense.
“We believe our agreement has more guardrails than previous agreements for sensitive AI deployments, including Anthropic,” OpenAI said in a statement.
In response to inquiries from Barron’s, U.S. Central Command declined to comment on the specific systems being used against Iran.
