The US Department of War has announced an artificial intelligence (AI) platform, GenAI.mil, which will host Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government as the first of several frontier AI capabilities. The department says GenAI.mil will leverage AI to create a more battle-ready enterprise, with Gemini specifically supporting agentic workflows within the department. It will also offer capabilities such as enterprise search to support administrative tasks, for example, “summarizing policy handbooks, generating project-specific compliance checklists, extracting key terms from statements of work, and creating detailed risk assessments for operational planning.”
The company added that Department of War employees will only use Gemini for unclassified tasks, such as simplifying personnel onboarding, automating redundant administrative work, and accelerating contracting workflows. It also emphasised that the data used by the department is never used to train public Google models. The GenAI.mil platform aligns with the US AI Action Plan, which focuses on incorporating AI technologies in defence and strengthening the country’s AI infrastructure. The plan argues that the Department of Defence needs to invest in increasing AI predictability to deploy it safely in defence and national-security contexts.
Existing AI use for military applications:
This development follows changes in AI-company policies: OpenAI and Google removed outright bans on military applications of their services in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Instead of a blanket prohibition, OpenAI now states that national-security uses of AI align with its mission. Google has said it will implement “appropriate human oversight, due diligence, and feedback mechanisms” to ensure alignment with user goals, social responsibilities, international law, and human rights.
Even before the launch of GenAI.mil, AI companies had already been working with the US military. In August 2023, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced collaborations with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft on next-generation cybersecurity systems. Similarly, xAI partnered with the US military earlier this year to offer generative-AI capabilities for defence purposes.
Outside the US, reports suggest that China has also used Meta AI for military applications. In 2024, three Chinese institutions, including two linked to the People Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) research arm, created a bot called ChatBIT using Meta’s Llama models. The bot is reportedly capable of offering information for operational decision-making.
How is India looking at AI use for defence purposes?
The Indian military has also begun integrating AI into a range of activities. In 2024, an entrepreneur participating in a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) challenge developed an AI tool called Divya Drishti, which combines facial recognition with physiological parameters such as gait and skeleton mapping for identity verification. The tool enhances identification accuracy and reduces the risk of false positives or identity fraud across defence, law-enforcement, corporate, and public-infrastructure use cases.
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The military also used AI in its Operation Sindoor mission earlier this year, according to a report by The Hindu from October. Lieutenant-General Rajiv Kumar Sahni, Director General of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (DG EME), said the mission deployed AI for enhanced surveillance, intelligence, and precision targeting. “Key systems include the Electronic Intelligence Collation and Analysis System (ECAS), TRINETRA (integrated with Project SANJAY), and predictive-modelling and weather-forecasting tools, all of which improved coordination and situational awareness,” he said, according to the report. The report also noted that a unified AI platform for the Indian Army is currently under development.
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