The U.S. and Israel are using artificial-intelligence tools to wage war on Iran with unprecedented speed and precision, having struck over 3,000 targets since last Saturday. The conflict, which began with the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has seen the deployment of advanced AI systems in intelligence gathering, target selection, mission planning, and damage assessment.

AI in Intelligence and Targeting

Israeli intelligence services have been monitoring hacked Tehran traffic cameras and eavesdropping on senior officials’ communications for years, increasingly relying on AI to sift through a flood of intercepts. This has allowed military planners to quickly identify and prioritize targets, such as missile launchers and military installations.

According to Israeli Col. Yishai Kohn, head of the defense ministry’s planning, economics, and IT division, AI is revolutionizing intelligence analysis. ‘Many potential missions simply never happened because the manpower didn’t exist to assess vital intelligence,’ he said. AI-powered machine vision can now quickly find vast numbers of targets, identifying specific models of aircraft or vehicles from video data.

Israeli company Conntour provides software that allows security agencies to query video databases similarly to how large language models find patterns in text. Users can ask the system to identify every missile launcher located near a hospital or set alerts for specific events, such as ‘Tell me every time someone takes a photo near this military base.’

AI in Logistics and Planning

AI is also being used to manage the logistics of military operations. The U.S. Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, using software from data company Palantir Technologies, achieved the most efficient targeting operation in history with only 20 people, compared with over 2,000 staffers in Iraq. This efficiency is attributed to AI’s ability to streamline mission planning and resource allocation.

The Pentagon is increasingly using AI to run models and digital wargames to prioritize targets and develop courses of action. Last year, the Pentagon contracted with Pittsburgh-based Strategy Robot to develop advanced systems that can analyze vast numbers of scenarios despite imperfect information. From potentially millions of iterations, planners can focus on actions most likely to achieve their objectives.

Before AI, mission planning could take weeks, with commanders and specialists compiling paper-stuffed binders. AI can potentially complete the same work in days, according to military leaders. The process, which involves intelligence officers, combat commanders, weapons experts, and logistics managers, typically includes around 40 people.

‘The more people you add into planning, the longer it takes,’ said a U.S. Army officer in Europe with experience in the process. ‘AI is helping us cut down the time and improve decision-making speed.’

Challenges and Ethical Concerns

Despite the advantages, the use of AI in warfare is not without challenges. The Pentagon’s first AI chief, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, noted that building military AI is difficult in part because much of the data for training is outdated or unclear. ‘The Department of Defense was built as a hardware company in the industrial age, and it has struggled to become a digital company in a software-centric era,’ he said.

Military strikes start with intelligence, and gathering and parsing it can require thousands of analysts working for hours over communications intercepts, photographs, and radar images. Human analysts can examine at most 4% of the intelligence material typically collected, according to U.S. officers who have worked in the field.

While AI is making intelligence analysis more efficient, the potential for errors remains high. U.S. military investigators believe American forces were likely responsible for a strike on the war’s first day that killed dozens of children at a girls’ elementary school in Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has urged accelerated adoption of AI to create an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force. However, he is also engaged in a public battle with Anthropic, a critical AI supplier, while the Pentagon has contracted with rival OpenAI to use its models in classified settings. President Trump has ordered the government to stop using Anthropic’s products, but U.S. officials say the current conflict is demonstrating the usefulness of Anthropic’s AI agent, Claude.

Despite these tensions, the U.S. and Israel have declined to discuss exactly how they are employing AI in the widening conflict. However, recent comments from military leaders and technical experts provide a window into the growing reliance on AI in modern warfare.