The Pentagon has signed a deal to expand its use of Google’s artificial intelligence in classified military operations, U.S. media outlets reported.

The agreement comes after the U.S. military moved away from Anthropic following a dispute over the company’s restrictions on how its technology can be used. More than 600 Google employees have publicly opposed the deal.

What does the Pentagon’s Google AI deal cover?

The agreement allows the Department of Defense to use Google’s AI for any lawful governmental purpose, including on classified networks. It follows a period in which Anthropic’s Claude was the only AI model authorized for use in classified military operations. The Pentagon has pushed for broad wording in AI contracts, arguing it is necessary to maintain operational flexibility.

Why did the Pentagon move away from Anthropic?

The U.S. military’s push to expand its Google AI use follows a breakdown in its relationship with Anthropic. In February, Trump instructed the government to stop using Anthropic’s technology after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth designated the company a national security supply chain risk. That label is typically reserved for organizations linked to unfriendly foreign countries.

Anthropic had objected to its technology being used for mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. The company is now fighting the government’s measures in court.

Following the fallout, rival firms moved quickly to fill the gap: OpenAI reached a separate agreement with the government to integrate its AI into the same classified framework, and Elon Musk’s xAI also struck a deal with the Pentagon, according to The Information.

“Overreliance on one vendor is never a good thing,” Pentagon chief digital officer Cameron Stanley said in an interview with CNBC.

Why are Google employees objecting to the Pentagon AI deal?

More than 600 Google employees signed an open letter on Monday urging Chief Executive Sundar Pichai to reject the proposed Pentagon deal. The letter drew signatories from several company divisions.

“Classified workloads are by definition opaque,” said one organizing employee, who was not named in the statement. “Right now, there’s no way to ensure that our tools wouldn’t be leveraged to cause terrible harms or erode civil liberties away from public scrutiny.”

The objection echoes a successful employee campaign in 2018, when workers pushed Google to abandon Project Maven, a Pentagon program to integrate AI into drone operations.

In recent years, however, Google has pursued a deliberate strategy shift, steadily rebuilding its military business and competing with rivals for defense cloud contracts. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest deal.