Google expands Gemini DoD partnership with Gem-like agents for unclassified projects

Google’s Gemini AI model will start incorporating specialized AI agents into the Department of Defense’s operations. For the time being, it will be limited to unclassified applications. That may soon change.

In an announcement about the new rollout, Google says it’s expanding its partnership with the DoD. Google’s models have been available to over three million government employees for unclassified applications, though it announced that it would begin making a new feature called “Agent Designer” available.

While Google doesn’t outright call this feature “Gems,” it seems to resemble the model customization tool in Google’s user-facing AI suite. Government employees will gain access to a simple AI builder that lets them create their own custom agents. The platform is advertised as “no-/low-code,” so natural conversation can be used to designate custom models for repetitive administrative tasks.

While the program is rolling out to over three million users, Google notes that over one million unique users have taken advantage of GenAI.mil to accomplish their work. So far, these include document creation, reviews, and “improving daily workflows.” Gemini’s AI agent tool for the Department of Defense will launch with eight agents ready to use.

According to Emil Michael, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering, using Google’s AI agents for classified applications is not out of the picture (via Bloomberg). The Department of Defense and Google are currently in talks to discuss what Gemini for classified material would look like.

We’re starting with unclassified because that’s where most of the users are, and then we’ll get to classified and top secret.

I have high confidence they’re going to be a great partner on all networks.

This comes as the DoD/DoW recently came into partnership with OpenAI, ousting Anthropic due to concerns over red-line safety measures for citizens. OpenAI believes its safety measures are satisfactory, and the recent partnership with Google shows that the company behind Gemini is willing to work with the DoD, as well.

Anthropic has since sued the US government, stating that its actions in designating the company a “supply chain risk” are “unprecedented and unlawful.”