Pentagon Formalizes Maven AI as Permanent Program of Record; NGA Oversight Transfers to CDAO

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg signed a March 9 memo directing military leaders to designate Palantir's Maven Smart System as an official program of record, mandating adoption across all service branches by September 2026. Maven's investment has grown from $480 million in 2024 to $13.4 billion in fiscal year 2026. Oversight of the platform will transfer from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to the Pentagon's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office within 30 days, with future contracts managed by the U.S. Army. Maven fuses satellite imagery, drone feeds, radar data, and signals intelligence into a single interface, then classifies targets and generates strike packages in near real time. The system uses Anthropic's Claude AI and holds Impact Level 6 accreditation for classified environments. The formalization comes as the Pentagon simultaneously designated Anthropic a supply chain risk for refusing to allow autonomous weapons use, creating an unusual situation where a mandated platform depends on technology from a blacklisted vendor.