Centcom commander touts use of AI in fight against Iran during Operation Epic Fury

Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, said in a video released Wednesday that artificial intelligence tools have helped the U.S. military fight faster and smarter during Operation Epic Fury and claimed, “We’re on a path to eliminating Iran’s ability to threaten Americans and our friends, and we are achieving this through a combination of lethality, precision and rapid innovation.”

“Artificial intelligence tools have helped the U”

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Cooper said warfighters are using a variety of advanced AI tools that “help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds so our leaders can cut through the noise and make smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react,” while stressing that “humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot and when to shoot.”

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The Centcom boss did not identify specific artificial intelligence systems that the command has employed, though the U.S. military has reportedly been using the Maven Smart System built by Palantir and Anthropic’s Claude AI technology to help with the Epic Fury campaign.

To date, American forces have hit more than 5,500 targets inside Iran, Cooper said, and during the first 10 days of Epic Fury—launched Feb. 28 under the orders of President Donald Trump—Centcom struck a variety of targets, including drone and ballistic missile sites, command-and-control facilities, ships, air defense systems and military communications capabilities.

The campaign has included the combat debut of new weapon systems, such as LUCAS drones and the Precision Strike Missile, which Cooper cited as part of the operation’s expanding capabilities.

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Cooper asserted that “U.S. combat power is building. Iranian combat power is declining,” and said Iranian drone and ballistic missile attacks have dropped “drastically.”

“Artificial intelligence tools have helped the U”

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He previously said that in the early days of the fight Iran had launched more than 2,000 drones and 500 ballistic missiles.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during a press briefing that Iranian drone attacks have decreased 83 percent since the beginning of the operation and that Tehran’s ballistic missile attacks have gone down 90 percent.

It’s unclear how much longer Epic Fury will last; Trump reportedly told Axios the operation may end “soon” and that there’s “practically nothing left to target,” while Trump administration officials had projected it could last several weeks or longer depending on how the situation evolves.

According to Cooper, about 50,000 American service members are currently deployed in and around the Middle East.

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At least seven U.S. troops have died during Epic Fury, including fatalities from an Iranian drone attack against a location in Kuwait, and about 140 have been wounded, according to news reports.

Separately, the Pentagon recently designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk after a heated dispute about terms of use for the contractor’s technology, and the company has sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies in response.