Anthropic Faces Pentagon Deadline Over AI Safeguards as It Expands Agent Capabilities with Vercept Acquisition

Anthropic is in a high-stakes dispute with the U.S. Department of Defense after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth set a Friday deadline for the company to accept broader military access terms for its Claude model. Reports said the Pentagon is weighing actions that could include labeling Anthropic a supply-chain risk or invoking the Defense Production Act, as it presses for fewer usage restrictions and argues military deployments should be governed by U.S. law rather than private contractor policies.

Separately, Anthropic announced it has acquired Seattle-based Vercept to strengthen agentic, computer-use workflows. Vercept’s Vy product is slated to wind down by March 25, with co-founders including Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick joining Anthropic.