Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg has directed the U.S. military to designate Palantir Technologies’ Maven Smart System as an official “program of record,” a formal status that secures stable, long-term funding and accelerates its adoption across all branches of the armed forces, according to a March 9, 2026, letter reviewed by Reuters.
In the memo sent to senior Pentagon leaders and U.S. military commanders, Feinberg wrote that embedding Maven would equip warfighters “with the latest tools necessary to detect, deter, and dominate our adversaries in all domains.”
The designation is expected to take effect by the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2026. The move transfers oversight of Maven from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office within 30 days. Future contracting will shift to the Army, streamlining procurement and integration.
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“It is imperative that we invest now and with focus to deepen the integration of artificial intelligence across the Joint Force and establish AI-enabled decision-making as the cornerstone of our strategy,” Feinberg stressed.
Maven’s Role in Current Operations
Maven serves as the U.S. military’s primary AI command-and-control platform for analyzing battlefield data from satellites, drones, radars, sensors, and intelligence reports. The system uses AI to automatically identify potential threats, including enemy vehicles, buildings, and weapons stockpiles. It has supported thousands of targeted strikes against Iran over the past three weeks amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war.
During a presentation at a Palantir event earlier this month, Pentagon official Cameron Stanley demonstrated Maven’s capabilities for weapons targeting in the Middle East. He showed heat map screenshots from the platform and noted: “When we started this, it literally took hours to do what you just saw.”
Palantir maintains that Maven does not make lethal decisions. Humans remain responsible for selecting and approving targets. The company stresses that its software is a decision-support tool, not an autonomous weapon.
Path to Program of Record Status
The program originated in 2017 as Project Maven, initially focused on labeling drone imagery. Palantir took over as the primary contractor in 2024 with a deal worth up to $480 million. That contract ceiling was raised to $1.3 billion in May 2025.
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in 2024, Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar said Maven had “tens of thousands” of users and urged Congress to provide additional funding.
Official program of record status will make Maven a permanent line item in defense budgets, reducing reliance on annual ad hoc appropriations and enabling broader deployment across combatant commands, services, and joint operations.
One lingering issue is Maven’s integration of Anthropic’s Claude AI model. Reuters previously reported that Anthropic was deemed a supply-chain risk by the Pentagon in early March 2026 after refusing to remove restrictions on mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous lethal weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth imposed a six-month phase-out of Anthropic tools across federal agencies and contractors, though a later Pentagon memo allowed continued use if deemed critical to national security.
United Nations expert panels have repeatedly warned that AI-assisted targeting without human intervention raises ethical, legal, and security risks due to potential biases in training data. Palantir insists humans retain ultimate responsibility for lethal decisions.
The designation is a major victory for Palantir, which has secured a growing portfolio of defense contracts, including a 2025 U.S. Army deal worth up to $10 billion. These awards have helped double the company’s stock price over the past year, lifting its market value to nearly $360 billion.
The decision also reflects the Pentagon’s accelerating embrace of AI as a core enabler of modern warfare. With the Middle East conflict ongoing and no clear end in sight, Maven’s expanded role could deepen U.S. reliance on commercial AI providers while intensifying debates over the ethics, reliability, and strategic risks of automated targeting systems.
As the military moves to institutionalize Maven, after jettisoning Anthropic, the U.S. is potentially setting the framework for AI policy and the broader integration of commercial technology into national security missions.