How the U.S. military is deploying AI in the Iran conflict

As fighting between the U.S.-Israel coalition and Iran enters a third week, Washington is leaning on artificial intelligence across the battlefield, according to Lauren Kahn of Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. AI tools—ranging from natural-language processing and large language models to computer vision—are being used for logistics, predictive maintenance, sensor fusion and decision support, but not to make lethal decisions, she said. The Pentagon maintains that humans remain responsible for the use of force and points to long-standing policies on autonomous systems dating to 2013. The Ukraine war has served as a proving ground for drones and AI-enabled operations, lessons the U.S. is applying now. A recent spat between AI firm Anthropic and the Defense Department over use in fully autonomous weapons underscores industry-government trust gaps more than immediate battlefield capabilities.

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