Cutting corners: When the war in Ukraine began in 2022, it was hailed as the first conflict to utilize the full spectrum of modern technology. The war in Iran, on the other hand, is the first where AI is playing an integral part, including planning bombing strikes quicker than "the speed of thought."
Reports this week claim Anthropic's Claude AI model was used in early US-Israel operations against Iran, including intelligence analysis and scenario planning tied to targeting.
The coverage has reignited concerns that large language models are increasingly being folded into the "kill chain," potentially accelerating decision-making and creating pressure for humans to accept machine-generated options faster than traditional oversight processes allow.
Reports say that Claude was used to assist in the initial strikes on Iran on Saturday that hit a range of targets and killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US military said it is looking into state media reports of a missile hitting a school in southern Iran that killed 165 people, many children.
The use of Claude in Iran came just days after the Trump administration moved to label Anthropic a "supply chain risk." Trump told federal agencies and the military to stop using Anthropic's tools following a breakdown in negotiations over restrictions the company says it wanted: no mass domestic surveillance of Americans and no fully autonomous weapons.
This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.
– Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) February 27, 2026
Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted…
Anthropic's tool continues to be used by the military while it is being phased out in favor of models from OpenAI, which struck a deal with the Pentagon over the weekend.
In 2024, Claude became part of a system developed by war-tech firm Palantir that was deployed across the US Department of War and other national security agencies. The system is designed to "dramatically improve intelligence analysis and enable officials in their decision-making processes."
"The AI machine is making recommendations for what to target, which is actually much quicker in some ways than the speed of thought," Craig Jones, a senior lecturer in political geography at Newcastle University and an expert in kill chains, told The Guardian. "So you've got scale and you've got speed, you're [carrying out the] assassination-style strikes at the same time as you're decapitating the regime's ability to respond with all the aerial ballistic missiles. That might have taken days or weeks in historic wars. [Now] you're doing everything at once."
In 2025, Iran claimed it was using domestically developed AI in its missile-targeting systems. However, the country's primary uses of the technology appear to be cyber operations – phishing, DDoS attacks, and other disruptive intrusion attempts against US targets – as well as propaganda campaigns.
Ultimately, AI is no longer a bit player in modern warfare. It's becoming a core element of both offense and defense, shortening the time between surveillance, analysis, and action. Beyond the immediate concerns about AI's tendancy to get some things very wrong, there are worries about how this usage will escalate in the future – and what it could mean for humanity.
Image credit: Mohammed Ibrahim
AI-driven warfare is here, and the Iran strikes show how fast it's advancing
