Maven

Project Maven (officially Algorithmic Warfare Cross Functional Team) is a Department of Defense initiative launched in April 2017 to accelerate the adoption of machine learning and data integration across U.S. military intelligence workflows, initially focused on applying computer vision for processing images and videos for intelligence purposes. Currently, the program operates under the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and encompasses multiple applications across the Department of Defense spanning military operation targeting support, data integration and visualization for analysts, and training machine learning models on labeled datasets of military assets and infrastructure. It integrates data from drones, satellites, and other sensors to flag potential targets, present findings to human analysts, and relay their decisions to operational systems. The program originated under Deputy Secretary Robert O. Work after he raised concerns about China's advances in defense applications of artificial intelligence. Project leaders, Col. Drew Cukor and Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, framed the program as human-in-the-loop decision support inside the Department of Defense rather than as an autonomous weapons platform. Contractors supporting Maven have included Google, which withdrew in 2018 after internal protests, and follow-on integrators such as Palantir, Anduril, Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, and more. The Pentagon credits Maven with providing 2024 targeting support for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, along with locating hostile maritime assets in the Red Sea.