The Pentagon appointed Army Col. Molly Solsbury as the Maven Smart System program director inside the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, the latest move in a sustained effort to anchor Palantir’s AI platform as the operational backbone of U.S. military command and control. DefenseScoop first reported the appointment on Aug. 5.
Sources told DefenseScoop that Solsbury’s team is intended to further cement the Maven Smart System (MSS) as a core operational cornerstone for Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) integration across the joint force. The Pentagon, however, has not publicly disclosed near-term progress metrics demonstrating that the platform has moved beyond fragmented deployments to enterprise-wide scale.
“CDAO continues to support Combatant Commands through its primary directorates and functions, including MSS, War Data Platform, GenAI.mil, and the Department’s AI Acceleration Strategy Pace-Setting Projects,” a Pentagon official told DefenseScoop.
A Decorated Officer for a Critical Role
Solsbury brings an unusual combination of special operations experience and digital modernization credentials to the position. She previously commanded the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade (Theater), where she championed data literacy initiatives and supported U.S. Army Central operations. She also served on operational tours with the 1st SFOD (Delta), 82nd Airborne Division, Joint Special Operations Command and 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), with campaigns spanning Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and North Africa.
Before joining CDAO, Solsbury led technology, data and innovation-focused initiatives as a director for JSOCx and Project Ridgway — an 18th Airborne Corps program launched in 2020 to build an AI-ready force culture from the unit level up. Project Ridgway was designed to operationalize data and AI tools at the lowest echelon possible, not just develop them in isolation.
According to her official CDAO biography, Solsbury is responsible for facilitating CDAO’s efforts to partner as a service-level experimentation support organization that enables the seamless expansion and integration of the Palantir platform across the joint force.
From Project Maven to Program of Record
The Maven Smart System traces its lineage to Project Maven, launched in 2017 under the first Trump administration to apply AI to the analysis of drone surveillance footage. Google was an early partner but withdrew in 2018 following employee protests. Palantir stepped in and has remained the primary industry partner since.
The platform evolved from a tool that tagged objects in surveillance video into a comprehensive AI-enabled command and control interface. It aggregates thousands of discrete data streams — satellite imagery, drone feeds, signals intelligence, intelligence reports — into a single map-based interface that allows users to identify targets, evaluate strike assets and action missions without switching systems. Pentagon Chief Digital and AI Officer Cameron Stanley described the result in a March 2026 demonstration: “We’ve gone from identifying a target to now coming up with a course of action, to now actioning that target. All from one system. This is revolutionary.”
Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg issued a March 9 memorandum directing DOD and military leaders to mature MSS into a formal program of record by the end of fiscal year 2026. “Transitioning MSS to a POR will provide the stable funding and resourcing necessary for deliberate, sustained development and enterprise-wide integration to give our commanders the C2 necessary to fight and win wars,” Feinberg wrote.
The Defense Department inked an initial $480 million, five-year IDIQ contract with Palantir for Maven in May 2024, covering five combatant commands. By May 2025, the Pentagon increased that ceiling to nearly $1.3 billion through 2029. The fiscal 2027 budget request includes more than $1.5 billion to expand MSS access across the joint force under the “Joint Force AI-Enabled Headquarters initiative,” with more than $1.9 billion per year planned through fiscal 2031.
Proven in Combat, Scrutinized for Transparency
The Maven Smart System’s combat record is now substantial. During Operation Epic Fury, the 38-day U.S. air campaign against Iran, MSS helped coordinate 13,000 airstrikes, according to Stanley. Unclassified usage surged 38 percent and classified usage by 89 percent month-over-month, with peak daily token usage hitting approximately 20 billion. A CSIS analysis published in June 2026 noted that MSS helped strike more than 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of the Iran campaign — a tenfold increase over what was possible in the pre-MSS era.
The system’s large language model capabilities, previously powered by Anthropic’s Claude on classified networks, are now in transition. The Pentagon labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March 2026 after the company refused to accept contract language permitting “any lawful use” of Claude. SpaceX, OpenAI and Google have since reached agreements with the Pentagon to provide their models on classified networks, though which will be integrated into MSS remains unclear.
Experts have raised concerns about the pace and opacity of the transition. “There’s a lack of transparency,” a former senior defense official told DefenseScoop. Emelia Probasco, a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, warned that the aggressive program-of-record timeline could constrain the innovation that made MSS so effective. “Maven becomes unbelievably successful because it has very little structure,” she said. “Is this going to squash the innovation that has made Maven so amazing and so popular?”
Virginia Burger of the Project on Government Oversight pointed to the political dimension: “As with everything that touches the DOD and AI, I always want to point out that we should all be wary and take a closer look at the ties these tech barons hold to the Trump administration. Peter Thiel is incredibly close to the vice president.”
What Comes Next
Feinberg’s March memo also directed the Pentagon to develop a “CJADC2 Acceleration Plan” that would assess the feasibility of establishing a CJADC2 Direct Reporting Program Manager and evaluate aligning MSS under a potential CJADC2 Program Office as its permanent home. Solsbury is steering activities related to that work as the new MSS program director within CDAO and DOD’s Research and Engineering directorate.
The appointment of a dedicated program director signals that the Pentagon is moving from ad hoc deployment to deliberate, sustained institutionalization of AI-enabled warfighting. Whether the program-of-record structure accelerates or constrains that evolution will depend heavily on how Solsbury and the CDAO navigate the competing pressures of bureaucratic accountability, operational urgency and the still-unresolved question of which AI models will power the system going forward.
AI generated
[1] DefenseScoop — Pentagon appoints new Maven Smart System program director
[2] FedScoop — How one corps is trying to modernize the Army
[3] DefenseScoop — Feinberg’s new Maven directive sets AI-enabled decision-making as ‘the cornerstone’ for CJADC2
[4] DefenseScoop — DOD components face ‘aggressive’ timeline for Maven Smart System transition
[5] DefenseScoop — DOD wants more than $2B in fiscal 2027 to move beyond ‘fragmented’ CJADC2 deployments
[6] Breaking Defense — ‘Insatiable appetite’ for AI: Maven usage surged for strikes on Iran
[7] CSIS — What Is Maven Smart System, and What Does It Do?
[8] Politico — Pentagon tells Anthropic it has designated the company a supply chain risk