Google's Pentagon deal widens Gemini's military scope to 'all lawful use'

The important shift in military AI right now is not a new model release; it is the contract language surrounding who gets to use frontier models, where, and under whose constraints. Axios reported on April 29 that the Pentagon reached an agreement with Google allowing Gemini to be used for all lawful use, including classified settings. That matters because procurement language often becomes the real policy long before Congress catches up.

According to Axios, which cited a source familiar with the agreement, the Pentagon-Google deal is more permissive than the framework OpenAI has described for its own work with the U.S. military. Axios also says The Information first reported that Google agreed to adjust safety settings at the government's request, while OpenAI says it retains full discretion over its safety mechanisms. Those details have not arrived in the form of a public rulebook, but they do show how much deployment power can move through bilateral contracts rather than statute.

Google's public line is narrower. Axios quotes a company spokesperson saying Google remains committed to the consensus that AI should not be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weaponry without appropriate human oversight. Critics in the story argue that language like that is still aspirational if it is not backed by stronger legal restrictions or external verification. That is the tension running through the current market: model vendors talk about red lines, but governments buy capabilities through contracts written for operational flexibility.

The political backdrop makes the story heavier. Axios says Congress remains far from passing military AI guardrails, even as advocacy groups push for rules such as meaningful human control before weapon decisions and deeper verification before contract awards. If those protections continue to lag, some of the most consequential limits on military AI deployment may be set first by private negotiations between labs and defense agencies, not by public law.