Palantir: US Department of Defense makes Maven Smart System the standard

The US Department of Defense intends to anchor Palantir's AI system Maven Smart System (MSS) as a permanent component of its military strategy. According to a memo seen by Reuters, the system is to become the official “Program of Record,” which would secure long-term funding and deployment across all branches of the armed forces. The decision is expected to take effect by the end of the current fiscal year, which ends in September.

According to the letter from Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, responsibility for Maven is to transfer from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to the Pentagon's Office of Digital and AI Strategy within 30 days. Maven is intended to connect data, sensor feeds, software, and algorithms, thus ensuring faster situational awareness, logistics, fire control, and targeting processes. However, humans will retain control, as the US Department of Defense emphasizes. Maven originally began in 2017 as a project for the automatic evaluation of reconnaissance and drone images. In 2024, the US Department of Defense signed a contract with Palantir worth 480 million US dollars for further development and increased the amount in May 2025 by another 750 million US dollars.

Feinberg wrote, according to Reuters, that it is “imperative” to invest now in the stronger integration of artificial intelligence into the armed forces and to make AI-driven decisions a cornerstone of the strategy. Palantir also emphasizes that its software does not make lethal decisions, but that humans are responsible for target selection and authorization.

At the same time, officials such as Cameron Stanley, Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) of the US Department of Defense, outlined field experiments for the development of AI systems according to a report by Govcon Wire a few days ago. Stanley made this clear at the Potomac Officers Club AI Summit, where high-ranking representatives from government and the defense industry, among others, exchanged views.

Time for War Experiments

Instead of striving for 100 percent perfection, the goal, as Stanley explained according to Govcon Wire, is initially to achieve 80 percent success rates and let soldiers test the systems in operation. They then provide “very aggressive [...] feedback” on “how badly” the system performed. Then, it is iterated until perfection is achieved. He doesn't know a single senior leader “who does not believe that the next war is going to be fought in a data-centric way with AI tools.”

As recently as January, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasized that the time for civilian experimentation in the defense sector was over. The US armed forces now needed to pursue a consistently war-oriented modernization course. According to Defensescoope, he called for a comprehensive review of existing processes to break through bureaucracy and drastically accelerate the introduction of new technologies, especially in the AI sector.

Maven Smart System NATO

NATO has been using the system since 2025 as Maven Smart System NATO (MSS NATO) for improved battlespace awareness, logistics, and target acquisition. Through a “wide range of AI applications – from large language models to generative and machine learning” and, among other things, thanks to intelligence information, NATO aims to be able to react faster to threats.

In addition, the British military paved the way with a strategic partnership agreement of up to 1.5 billion pounds by using Palantir's AI capabilities – already tested in Ukraine – for decision-making and targeting. The new classification would further solidify Palantir's role in the US military. Meanwhile, protests surrounding the use of the company's software in the English healthcare system are growing.

(mack)