Jack Paul 
On Monday, the Pentagon added military versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok to its GenAI.mil portal. The portal is the Defense Department’s central hub for commercial AI and now serves roughly 3 million defense personnel. It launched about nine months ago with Google’s Gemini, and the department says more than 1.7 million users have enrolled so far.
The military versions carry Impact Level 5 accreditation, which covers controlled unclassified information. That means staff can use them for sensitive government work without routing data through consumer apps. The Pentagon says having multiple models also prevents dependency on a single vendor.
What the new tools offer
ChatGPT Mil includes chat, files, projects, and custom GPTs. It looks built for document-heavy unclassified tasks in planning, policy, logistics, and administration. Grok’s release includes deep-thinking inference, three reasoning modes called Auto, Fast, and Expert, and reusable playbooks meant to store institutional knowledge. The Pentagon says Grok lets forces execute missions faster and with greater precision. ChatGPT reads more like a desk tool, while Grok is framed around mission execution.
Why Claude is not on the portal
Anthropic’s Claude remains absent, and the reasons have little to do with capability. Anthropic signed a $200 million Pentagon deal in July but wanted written assurances that its models would not be used in fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance. The Pentagon pushed for unrestricted access and set a February 27 deadline that was not met.
Late in February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk to national security. The move followed President Donald Trump’s order for federal agencies to stop using the company’s technology. Anthropic called the label unprecedented, since such designations are normally reserved for foreign adversaries. It also noted that it was the first frontier lab to run models on classified U.S. networks and support warfighters, dating back to June 2024.
The legal fight continues
Anthropic is challenging the designation in court. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin has expressed First Amendment concerns about the government’s response, and a parallel appeal is now before the D.C. Circuit Court. For now, ChatGPT and Grok are available through GenAI.mil, but Claude will stay locked out until the appeal runs its course.