The Pentagon's AI targeting platform Maven Smart System has been deployed in real combat against Iranian-backed forces, marking what insiders describe as the first major test of American artificial intelligence at war. The system helped identify more than 85 targets that US bombers and fighter aircraft subsequently struck in Iraq and Syria in February 2024 - in retaliation for the death of three American service members in Jordan.

The revelation comes from journalist Katrina Manson's yearslong investigation into Project Maven, excerpted in WIRED, which details how US Central Command shifted from AI experimentation to live combat use, as "Hvylya" reports.

The pivot happened fast. After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, CENTCOM's operational tempo surged. "October 7th everything changed," said Schuyler Moore, the command's chief technical officer. "We immediately shifted into high gear and a much higher operational tempo than we had previously." Brigadier General John Cogbill described the aftermath simply: "It's just been off to the races ever since."

General Erik Kurilla, who took over CENTCOM in April 2022, had begun using Maven "extensively" in support of US weapon strikes. He spent much of 2023 running exercises to practice processing a thousand targets a day, cooperating with the UK and others in a series of experimental 90-day sprints. By early 2024, the command made "a pretty seamless shift" from exercises to actual combat operations.

Maven's role expanded further during the 12-day Iran-Israel war that erupted in June 2025. The platform was used to detect and track ballistic missile launches headed toward Israel. Earlier, when Iran sent 200 missiles toward Israel in October 2024, Maven teams had stayed up overnight working on the digital infrastructure. Kurilla himself monitored real-time Maven feeds from a plane, tracking activity in Iraq and ship locations across the Red Sea.

What the command had achieved, Kurilla would later confide to others, was "eye-watering."

Previously: Classified DOJ Memo on Caribbean Strikes Exposes Pentagon Operating Near Legal Line.