Drew Cukor

Drew Cukor is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and former intelligence officer who founded and led Project Maven, the U.S. military's AI-targeting effort, now the Maven Smart System anchored by Palantir. He is the central figure in Katrina Manson's 2026 book Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare. After leaving the Defense Department in 2021 he joined JPMorgan Chase, where Manson described him in mid-2024 as leading the bank's AI transformation for chief executive Jamie Dimon (Source: thewalrus.ca).

Project Maven

Project Maven was launched in 2017. In remarks that year at a Defense One Tech Summit, Cukor, then chief of the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Function Team in the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Operations Directorate-Warfighter Support of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, said the Department would field computer-vision algorithms to extract objects from drone imagery by the end of the calendar year. The initial focus was 38 classes of objects relevant to the fight against the Islamic State. He described an algorithm as about 75 lines of Python code inside a larger software-hardware container. He said "we are in an AI arms race", that "you don't buy AI like you buy ammunition", and that commercial partners were essential because "there is no 'black box' that delivers the AI system the government needs". He also said that "AI will not be selecting a target [in combat] … any time soon", and that its role would be to complement the human operator (Source: war.gov).

The Economist's review of Manson's book describes it as an account of how Cukor, "a hard-driving marine, created a team of mavericks who put AI at the heart of America's war machine". The review notes the team was often at odds with itself and with the rest of the Pentagon, that Google withdrew from Maven in 2018 after employee protests, and that Palantir later became the most important firm in its development (The AI that transformed American warfare (Economist, May 14 2026) — review of Manson's Project Maven). In a book excerpt, Manson writes that although Maven was presented as a computer-vision project to sort drone footage, Cukor and his backers intended from the outset to use AI to help target people and objects. She writes that he wanted to bring intelligence directly into combat operations, test emerging technology in real wars, and reduce accidental killings of civilians, allies and U.S. troops. He also sought to use defense spending to tie the nascent commercial AI market to the United States rather than let it look for customers in China. His most controversial decision, in her account, was pushing the military to use minimally tested systems in active wars, on the argument that deploying AI before it was reliable was the only way to improve it and build operators' trust. Manson reports that Palantir chief executive Alex Karp later called Cukor the "founding father of AI targeting" and that Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Scale AI and Nvidia were among the companies drawn into the program (Source: thewalrus.ca).

Manson reports that the Maven Smart System is now deployed in every branch of the U.S. military, incorporating more than 150 data feeds and the work of more than fifty companies. NATO began using a version in spring 2025. An official at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency told her that computer vision raised the number of targets the U.S. could hit from under 100 a day to 1,000, and that large language models integrated into Maven raised it fivefold to 5,000 a day (Source: thewalrus.ca). See Autonomous Weapons and Defense / Military — AI Deployment.

Leadership, conduct and views

The Marine Corps reprimanded Cukor for overseeing a toxic culture within Maven. The Economist's review of Manson's book describes him as "intriguing… whose intensity and drive shaped the programme's success" (The AI that transformed American warfare (Economist, May 14 2026) — review of Manson's Project Maven). Manson describes a demanding style: team members coined "to Cukor" for tremendous hours and intensity, and one called him "like a mastermind" in bending the bureaucracy to his will. She also records his view that the problem with war "had always been the humans" (Source: thewalrus.ca).

In Manson's account, Cukor reflects on the program's stewardship of the technology: "Let's be able to look ourselves in the mirror and make sure we are careful. We have all this tech; are we the best custodians of it?" (The AI that transformed American warfare (Economist, May 14 2026) — review of Manson's Project Maven). In the book excerpt he tells Manson he would do it all again and had no regrets, but acknowledges "dark parts" to the technology: "Let's make sure that we know those flaws as we wield this technology." He argues that the wealth, geographic isolation and stability that let America develop such technologies do not exempt it from that responsibility (Source: thewalrus.ca). NPR's April 2026 coverage of the book summarized his view that AI will completely change how the United States fights wars, and may already have done so (Source: npr.org).

Departure to JPMorgan Chase

FedScoop reported on October 25, 2021 that Cukor, then the top officer overseeing Project Maven, had told colleagues he would leave the Defense Department that Friday to join JPMorgan Chase (Source: fedscoop.com). Manson writes that by mid-2024 he was leading the transformation of artificial intelligence at the bank for Jamie Dimon (Source: thewalrus.ca). See Financial Services — AI Deployment.

Relationships

• founded: Project Maven (now Maven Smart System; Palantir-anchored)
• subject-of: Project Maven (Manson, 2026) — see Katrina Manson and The AI that transformed American warfare (Economist, May 14 2026) — review of Manson's Project Maven
• related: DOD — Department of Defense (AI Deployer), Palantir Technologies, Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO), Scale AI
• related: AI and National Security, Defense / Military — AI Deployment, Financial Services — AI Deployment