On Nov. 28, the Israeli publication +972 Magazine—which in 2024 published an exposé on the IDF’s use of an AI program called Lavender for targeting alleged Hamas members in Gaza—reported the presence of two AI firms in the U.S.-run Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel, Palantir and another one called Dataminr.
According to a seating chart seen by +972, a “Maven Field Service Representative” was present at the CMCC. According to +972, Maven, a Palantir AI platform, collects and analyses surveillance data taken from war zones to speed up U.S. military operations, including lethal airstrikes. The platform sucks information from satellites, spy planes, drones, intercepted telecommunications, and the internet, and “packages it into a common, searchable app for commanders and support groups,” according to U.S. defense outlets.
The U.S. military calls Maven its “AI-powered battlefield platform.” It has already been deployed to guide U.S. airstrikes across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. (Not said is that the campaign against the Houthis in Yemen was a defeat for the U.S. Navy, resulting in the loss of 3 F-18 fighter jets without the Houthis scoring a single hit. Fatigue and confusion were identified as major factors in those losses—ed.). Palantir has marketed its technology as shortening the process of identifying and bombing military targets—what the company’s CTO recently described as “optimizing the kill chain.” Over the summer, Palantir scored a $10 billion contract to update and refine the Maven platform for U.S. armed forces.