The US military has used the Maven Smart System (MSS), an AI‑driven platform, for the first time on a large scale during the recent war with Iran. According to US sources, the system helped identify and target more than 1,000 objectives in the first 24 hours, roughly ten times the capacity the Army had before its deployment.
MSS is the core of Project Maven, a Pentagon initiative launched in 2017 to integrate artificial intelligence into the armed forces' intelligence and operational cycles. The project was created to address the overwhelming volume of data collected by satellites, drones, radars, and other sensors, which far exceeded the ability of human analysts to process. In past conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of continuously operating drones outpaced the analysts available to review their footage, leaving large amounts of imagery unexamined.
The AI system ingests data from hundreds of sources simultaneously and uses machine‑learning models to detect patterns and potential targets, aiming to close the gap between data collection and actionable intelligence.