Overview
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Grok will join the GenAI.mil platform and begin operating across Defense Department networks later this month, including classified systems.
- Hegseth directed that “all appropriate data” from military IT systems, including intelligence databases, be made available for AI use, with the Pentagon’s AI office empowered to enforce data policies.
- Grok will operate alongside Google’s Gemini, which was selected in December to underpin GenAI.mil, as part of a multi-model strategy following 2025 contracts to xAI, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
- Regulatory and legal scrutiny of Grok continues overseas, with Malaysia and Indonesia blocking the service and the U.K.’s Ofcom opening a formal investigation after reports of nonconsensual sexualized images.
- xAI has restricted some image features to paying users, while civil society groups warn of national security and civil rights risks and the Pentagon has not published detailed security or certification plans for the deployment.