OpenAI Tapped for Voice Control Tech in US Drone Swarm Challenge
OpenAI has partnered with two defense technology companies the Pentagon has chosen to compete to develop voice-controlled, drone swarm software for the U.S. military, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
OpenAI’s technology will only be used to translate voice commands from battlefield commanders into digital instructions for drones, according to two of the sources. It will not be used for drone swarm operation, weapons integration or targeting authority, two people said. Everyone asked not to be named to discuss sensitive matters that have not been publicly disclosed.
The effort is part of a $100 million Pentagon prize challenge announced in January that aims to deliver prototypes for technology that can manage swarms of drones that can make decisions and carry out missions without human intervention. Sources said that the competition, which will last six months, will progress in stages depending on the success and interest of the participants.
According to some people, OpenAI’s logo appears in at least two of the successful contest entries. OpenAI’s involvement was not previously reported and the names of the selected companies were not publicly disclosed. Bloomberg News was unable to identify OpenAI’s partners.
According to some people, OpenAI has not decided how far to go or tightened agreements with relevant defense technology companies. Only the open source version of the OpenAI model will be provided, rather than the company’s most advanced models, according to one of the sources, adding that the company may also provide installation support.
OpenAI has not submitted its own bid for the prize, and its participation in the competition will only be superficial, according to a spokesperson. Other AI companies have directly submitted their own bids to participate in the drone swarm competition, according to the spokesperson. Bloomberg was unable to identify the other companies.
Special Operations Command, which runs the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, or DAWG, declined to comment. The Defense Innovation Unit did not respond to a request for comment. DAWG and DIU jointly launched the prize competition for drone swarm technology.
The company’s involvement in the drone swarm challenge suggests that its defense efforts are aimed at expanding the military’s current use of vehicles.
This week, the Pentagon announced a partnership with OpenAI that will make ChatGPT available to 3 million Department of Defense personnel. Chief Executive Sam Altman last year downplayed the possibility of helping the Pentagon develop an AI-enabled weapons platform.
“I don’t think most of the world wants AI to make weapons decisions,” he said at a conference dedicated to modern conflict in April, adding that the company did not expect it to do so “in the foreseeable future.”
But Altman still left this possibility open. “I will never say never because the world can get really weird,” he said.
While it is already possible to fly multiple UAVs simultaneously, the development of software to direct multiple UAVs as a swarm at sea and in the air (capable of operating autonomously in pursuit of a target) remains a challenge.
Those selected for the Pentagon’s competition must demonstrate that their technology can translate a battlefield commander’s voice commands into action, allowing drones to perform missions en masse during combat operations.
A defense official cited in the announcement made clear that the effort would be offensive, saying human-machine interaction “will directly impact the lethality and effectiveness of these systems.”
Commands could include instructions such as “Move all USV pods 5 kilometers east,” according to an example the Pentagon offered, referencing unmanned surface ships.
Despite the Pentagon’s eagerness to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence and autonomy, the prospect of integrating chatbots and voice-to-text commands into weapons platforms has even alarmed some defense officials, many say. They said it would be important to limit generative AI to translation and not allow it to control drone behavior.
Many people familiar with the matter have expressed concern about the risks that could arise if generative AI is used to turn voice into operational decisions without a human in the loop.
The move comes at a time when leading productive AI companies are scrambling to generate revenue to support ongoing research and development, as employees at major labs leave after raising a number of other ethical concerns about the AI industry. These include an OpenAI researcher who said he was concerned about ads on ChatGPT, and a researcher at Anthropic who publicly resigned and raised broader concerns about AI development.
The large language models that underpin chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT are prone to bias and so-called hallucinations; This means they can produce output that is not anchored in reality but that AI can present as reliable.
The Pentagon’s new AI Acceleration Strategy, announced in January, aims to “unleash” AI agents on the battlefield, from planning military campaigns to targeting potentially lethal attacks.
Defense contracts have historically been controversial at consumer technology companies; this included significant protests at Google in 2018 over a Pentagon effort called Project Maven, which aimed to use artificial intelligence to analyze drone imagery.
Recently, the AI industry has shown greater openness to such deals. In 2024, OpenAI revised its policy to work in the field of national security and later acquired defense technology company Anduril Industries Inc. to work on anti-drone technology. announced a strategic cooperation with. At the time, an OpenAI spokesperson said the company’s partnership with Anduril was aimed at using its technology specifically in a defensive capacity against unmanned drones.
In June 2025, OpenAI and defense contractor Applied Intuition Inc. announced a strategic partnership to develop “next-generation, AI-powered experiences in vehicles.”
The Pentagon’s description of the voice-controlled drone competition refers to various competition phases in which companies will participate only if they are successful in previous tests.
The first phase would focus solely on software development before using live platforms later. According to the Pentagon’s mission statement, the software aims to coordinate drone movements across multiple domains, such as air and sea. Later stages require developing “awareness and sharing of the target” and eventually “beginning closure.”
With help from Shirin Ghaffary.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to the text.
