Image Courtesy: U.S. Military
The Pentagon is expanding its use of artificial intelligence by giving its workforce access to specialized versions of ChatGPT and Grok through a secure platform designed to support military and civilian operations.
The Department of War announced that the two AI systems are being added to GenAI.mil, a government-built platform launched in December that initially provided access to a specialized version of Google’s Gemini. The platform already has 1.7 million users among the department’s roughly 3 million military personnel and civilian employees.
The expansion follows defense contracts worth up to $200 million each that were awarded to OpenAI and xAI, the company behind Grok. Google and Anthropic also received contracts during the Pentagon’s broader push to bring generative AI into government operations.
OpenAI’s military-focused system, called ChatGPT Mil, operates within the company’s OpenAI for Government initiative. The Pentagon said the platform is designed to provide a familiar ChatGPT experience while keeping government data within a secure environment.
The system can be used to process Controlled Unclassified Information at Impact Level 5, a category covering sensitive but unclassified government information. OpenAI has said data entered into the military version will not be used to train its AI models.
Much of the Pentagon’s daily work involves routine and document-heavy tasks in areas such as human resources, logistics, and contracting, making AI tools potentially useful for processing and analyzing large volumes of information.
Grok for Government will offer users several reasoning modes, including auto, fast, and expert settings, as well as advanced inference capabilities. The Pentagon said the system could support tasks ranging from acquisition research to supply-chain management.
The rollout is part of a broader effort to make AI a routine part of military operations. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has previously urged department personnel to incorporate AI into their daily workflows, describing the technology as increasingly important to the future of American warfare.
The expansion has not been entirely without controversy. GenAI.mil’s initial launch reportedly confused some employees, who mistook an unexpected promotional pop-up encouraging them to use AI for a possible cyberattack.
Anthropic’s Claude is notably absent from the latest additions. The company has been involved in a public dispute with the Pentagon over restrictions on the potential military use of its technology. A judge ruled last week that the Department of War acted unlawfully when it designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk.
As the Pentagon accelerates its adoption of generative AI, ChatGPT and Grok are set to become part of the daily workflow for millions of people responsible for supporting the U.S. military.
