Google DeepMind VP of global affairs Tom Lue told employees in a January town hall that the company was going to be “leaning more” into national security contracts with governments—a signal that Google’s appetite for defence work is only growing.The comments, reported by Business Insider from a recording of the meeting, came in response to employee concerns about Google’s expanding ties with the Pentagon and Boston Dynamics. Lue said the company had a “robust process” to evaluate whether such partnerships aligned with Google’s AI principles, and cited cybersecurity and biosecurity as areas where Google was actively in conversation with government clients.
Google quietly rewrote its AI rules in 2025
What Lue also reminded employees of was that Google updated its AI principles last year—and that update removed a prior pledge to not use Google’s technology for weapons development or surveillance. The new benchmark, as Lue framed it, is simpler: “The north star for the analysis is whether the benefits substantially exceed the risks.”Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who once feared the weaponisation of DeepMind’s work, said in the same meeting that he was “very comfortable” with the balance the company was striking. Google re-engaged the Pentagon last year after walking away from military AI work in 2018, and earlier this month won a contract to deploy Gemini AI agents across the department’s unclassified networks—starting with tasks like summarising meeting notes, drafting documents, and budget creation.
Google’s expanding defence footprint comes as Anthropic fights back in court
The backdrop to all this is the ongoing fallout from Anthropic’s public standoff with the Pentagon, which escalated into a lawsuit after the DoD designated the Claude-maker a “supply chain risk.” That label—historically reserved for foreign adversaries—was slapped on Anthropic after it refused to drop restrictions on autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. Anthropic headed to a San Francisco federal court on Tuesday seeking a preliminary injunction.Google, meanwhile, appears to have no such hesitations. The Pentagon’s AI push is accelerating, and Google is one of its most willing partners.
