The future of air power is autonomous, and the U.S. is not in the lead: aircraft developer Merlin Labs

The future of airpower lies in autonomous platforms, and although the United States has the world’s largest air force, it may not be the leader.

That’s according to Matt George, CEO of autonomous aircraft developer Merlin Labs.

Speaking to CNBC’s Morgan Brennan at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE, George said small and medium-sized autonomous platforms are dominating the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Autonomous platforms include unmanned aerial vehicles used for reconnaissance or to directly attack military targets with a carried payload. These drones are much cheaper and can be deployed faster than conventional weapons, causing Western militaries to reconsider their spending priorities.

“I think the United States has come to understand … we’re not necessarily behind, but we don’t have clear leadership, and we need to invest behind those capabilities,” George said.

We know that drones are currently being used in this conflict in Iran… [as] In Ukraine, you know, this is the first conflict that actually turned into a drone-driven war.”

Kyiv Turkish Bayraktar used TB2 unmanned aerial vehicle In the early stages of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia also used Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones to attack Ukraine. own Lancet drones.

In the Middle East, Shahed also used unmanned aerial vehicles as Iran retaliated against the Gulf countries following the airstrikes carried out by the USA and Israel on the country in February.

“We… talked about the really high-end stuff in the United States, but… we also saw that large manned platforms were still really vulnerable. We saw that large aircraft were being compromised by adversaries using much cheaper munitions and other types of electronic warfare,” George said.

In June 2025, Ukraine’s security services launched an operation. Massive drone attack Against Russian air assets using unmanned aerial vehicles hidden in trucks, reportedly damaged More than 40 aircraft.

Iran also used drones shoot down US plane An attack was carried out on air-to-air refueling tankers and early warning planes in Saudi Arabia.

At the beginning of the Ukrainian war in 2022, Report of the Center for Strategic and International Studies He said: “If the missiles were to hit sensitive targets, shooting down a $4 million missile with $250,000 Russian cruise missiles would be justified. Shooting down a $4 million missile with a $50,000 Iranian Shahed-136 drone would probably not be justified.”

CSIS said the cost of the PAC-3 interceptor missile used as part of the US-made Patriot air defense system was approximately $4 million..

This inequality was seen again during the Iran war. Reports emerge on US interceptor stockpiles in the Gulf It was running critically low at the time of Iran’s drone attacks.

In an article dated April 23 SpeechAaron Brynildson, a law instructor at the University of Mississippi, wrote: “Russia or Iran don’t need every drone to hit their target. They just need to keep sending out wave after wave until their adversaries run out of expensive missiles to respond with.”

George said he is now seeing a “real refocus” on Western countries investing in autonomous technology. He pointed out that the US defense budget allocated 75 billion dollars for autonomous platforms and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Pentagon’s requested budget for the Defense Autonomous Working Group, or DAWG, reportedly nailed It increased from $225.9 million this year to $54.6 billion.

But aside from a huge budget, George believes the US military also needs to take into account the speed at which it can implement such platforms.

The Air Force needs to deliver these capabilities “in weeks and months, not years, which is how we’ve traditionally done things,” he said.