US military reportedly used Anthropic’s Claude AI in Maduro capture operation

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - WASHINGTON — The U.S. military used Anthropic’s artificial intelligence model Claude during an operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, the AI model was accessed through Anthropic’s partnership with Palantir Technologies, a contractor that works with U.S. defense and federal law enforcement agencies. The exact role Claude played in the operation has not been publicly disclosed.

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The report said Anthropic became the first known AI developer whose technology was used in a classified operation by the U.S. Department of Defense. It remains unclear how the model — which is capable of analyzing documents, generating reports and supporting complex data processing tasks — was deployed during the mission.

Following the raid, an employee at Anthropic reportedly asked a counterpart at Palantir how Claude had been used in the operation, the newspaper said.

A spokesperson for Anthropic declined to comment on whether the model was used in the mission, but told the newspaper that any deployment of Claude must comply with the company’s usage policies.

“Any use of Claude — whether in the private sector or across government — is required to comply with our usage policies, which govern how Claude can be deployed. We work closely with our partners to ensure compliance,” the spokesperson said.