“What we’re seeing so far is the workflows are very similar, so the disruption is, we think, minimal,” Emil Michael said.
Emil Michael, the Defense Department’s under secretary for research and engineering and chief technology officer, said he is “pretty confident” the Pentagon can quickly phase out use of Anthropic’s products without major disruptions within the six-month deadline set by President Donald Trump.
When asked about internal pushback from military users who have already embedded Claude into their workflows, Michael said competing AI models have similar workflows, making it relatively easy to introduce alternatives.
“We’ve already deployed OpenAI in the last few weeks, and we’re going to deploy the others. We have deployed Gemini. As these things move up echelon into different classification networks, the warfighter is going to have tons of different options,” Michael said Tuesday during the McAleese Defense Programs conference.
“And what we’re seeing so far is the workflows are very similar. So the disruption is, we think, minimal,” he added.
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Following a dispute with Anthropic over how the military can use its AI models, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled the company a supply-chain risk, a status that is usually reserved for foreign companies that pose a national security risk. The Pentagon now has 180 days to remove Anthropic’s products from its systems and defense vendors have to certify they are not using Claude in DoD work.
Anthropic was the first AI company to deploy its models on Pentagon’s classified systems. The company’s tools were widely viewed across the federal government as superior to those of its competitors, and military users have been slow to phase them out.
Michael sidestepped the ongoing legal dispute between Anthropic and the Defense Department, focusing instead on the risks of relying on a single supplier and the need to give military users multiple options to choose from.
“One of the problems, without getting into the specifics about Anthropic, is that we had one primary provider on classified networks. That doesn’t work for the Department of War. It shouldn’t work for any complex organization. We have to have other options. So when I set out on this AI journey, we invited all four of the frontier model companies to come deploy with us so that our warfighters had different options,” Michael said.
“Some of these models are good at other things. Claude has a good use case on coding. Codex with OpenAI is coming up strong. xAI has some real-time content advantages. Google Gemini has some advantages because of their assets with YouTube, Nest Cams, so for robotics and things like that. They all have different strengths,” he added.
The idea, Michael said, is to present these “frontier” models to the department, and over time, those capabilities may converge. “But for now, we need to have more than one option — ideally all options — and then maybe you narrow them over time.”
But industry experts say replacing those systems may be more difficult than the chief technology officer suggests.
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Joe Saunders, the CEO of government contractor RunSafe Security, said that while it is true that model interfaces and workflows are becoming more standardized at the surface level, swapping out a model like Claude within defense systems is a complex effort.
“These models are embedded across workflows, security-accredited environments, and mission-specific processes. Even when other models are available, each one requires validation, and in many cases, re-authorization before it can be used in operational settings,” Saunders told Federal News Network.
“So while standing up alternatives can happen quickly, fully transitioning away from an existing model — especially across classification levels — takes careful coordination. A six-month timeline may be achievable in more contained environments, but at the DoD scale, it will likely vary by system and mission,” he added.
Meanwhile, Michael said it is “his job” to ensure the Pentagon can meet the six-month deadline to remove Claude from its systems.
“I am responsible for making sure the availability of other systems and other technologies exist. So I’m working every day at it with a highly capable team that’s very tech savvy. We’ve hired people from the tech force initiative, from OPM, we’ve hired a really great team from industry, and we’re working with all the AI companies. And we were already planning, no matter what happened with that Anthropic situation, to have other models available on the system,” Michael said.
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