Autonomous and AI-enabled drones are rapidly evolving from concept to battlefield reality, creating a fast-changing legal and compliance landscape for companies developing, deploying, or investing in these technologies in the U.S. and abroad.

Drones, Swarms, Autonomy, and Strategy

Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) currently factor into almost every aspect of military and security operations in some way.  Within the Department of War (DOW), there are two primary and closely aligned approaches: to accelerate the adoption of autonomous and AI-enabled technologies; and to augment existing resources, platforms, and capabilities with low-cost drones.  Importantly, this is not necessarily an effort to replace existing systems, but to use technology as a force multiplier.

Autonomous technology is currently being used in active conflicts, most notably in Ukraine and in the war with Iran.  For example, at the beginning of April 2026, a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iran.  The pilot reported seeing Iranian drones swarming together in a jellyfish-like formation that adapted, moved as one with the smaller drones below the larger ones behaving like legs. In another example, a recent attack of Russian drones and missiles against Ukraine at the end of May 2026 was largely thwarted with 90 percent intercepted because of an aggressive application of AI and robotics.  Many observers note that Ukraine is more than surviving the war with Russia due to innovative application of autonomous technology highlighted by its middle-distance drone strikes on logistics.

On land, three Russian soldiers in the Ukraine conflict surrendered to a tracked battlefield drone. The U.S. Army is embracing a culture shift to rapidly innovate autonomous vehicles learning from Ukraine’s rapid fielding by establishing the Army Drone Innovation Lab, which explores current drone warfare and the future of drone swarm applications.

Russia’s evolving Lancet Loitering Munitions System is a highly effective autonomous drone system comprised of a reconnaissance drone and kamikaze drones that can engage targets 70-80 kilometers out and is effective against vehicles, facilities, and naval objectives.  The Atlas drone swarm operations system from China is a stark and shocking display of the potential power of combining AI and drones to perform sophisticated tasks, autonomously execute battlefield operations, and adapt to a dynamic environment.  A recent demonstration had an Atlas drone swarm conduct coordinated reconnaissance, identify a target, and strike that target completely autonomously.

Right now, DOW is investing heavily in innovation and offensive and defensive autonomous UAS uses on the battlefield, for force protection, and for non-kinetic purposes such logistics, intelligence,  surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), search and rescue, and communications.

DOW is exploring autonomous vehicle swarm uses in depth. USAFRICOM teamed with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to field test a low-cost drone-swarm defense system, CURTAIN CALL, that detects and intercepts single and multiple drone attacks and threats. On January 8, 2026, DOW used an AI-enabled drone swarm in a kinetic attack on a column of inflatable tanks as part of a military exercise in Florida.  The important part of this exercise was that one drone led the other three drones in a synchronized assault.

Acknowledging the power of drone swarms and competitor nation state developments,  DOW recently released a solicitation for its Swarm Forge Prototype Project. Swarm Forge is a vanguard effort in DOW’s AI Acceleration Strategy. The intent is to rapidly test, validate, and field AI-enabled, heterogeneous, multi-vendor drone swarms defensively, offensively, and for ISR missions. The foundations of Swarm Forge are quarterly “Crucible Events”, heterogeneous multi-vendor swarms, fielding capabilities to operational units in 90 days or less, and structuring the acquisition process to ensure rapidly deployed capabilities.

The Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program is the U.S.’s initiative to develop a fleet of autonomous uncrewed wingman drones for fifth and sixth generation fighters and potentially the B-21 Raider program. The program provides “affordable, risk-tolerant aircraft that operate as part of a human-machine team, extending the reach, survivability and effectiveness of crewed platforms in contested environments.”  DOW has engaged industry and producing capabilities like the YFQ-44A from Anduril, the YFQ-42A from General Atomics, and the XQ-58 from Kratos Defense. The USAF is developing its new B-21 Raider to incorporate both manned and unmanned teaming with drone swarms.

DOW is creating an organizational structure to support the effort and allocating the funds to execute. The Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) was created in the fall of 2025, evolving from the 2023 Replicator Initiative with a renewed emphasis on autonomous warfare and increased proposed budget of $54.6B. The Secretary of War testified on April 29, 2026 that a new sub-unified command for autonomous warfare will be established and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027 is sure to address these topics.

Shortly before this testimony, U.S. Southern Command also established the USSOUTHCOM Autonomous Warfare Command (SAWC), which may be the basis for an autonomous warfare command. This focus on a sub-unified command is telling since this acknowledges a critical and permanent joint, cross-cutting mission for combatant commands and services—similar to the Joint Special Operations Command, which falls under U.S. Special Operations Command and provides direct action capabilities for all commands. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) emphasized the need to embrace the future of warfare and establish a new combatant command, Robotic and Autonomous Systems Combatant Command (RASCOM) in S. 4784, Section 917. The SASC’s proposed revision of 10 U.S.C. §167 states that the President may estabish a unified combatant command for robotic and autonomous systems. The House Armed Services Committee proposal, H.R. 8800 does not include this language.

To further these efforts to develop and deploy autonomous capabilities, DOW is seeking funding through the budget process emphasizing quickly leveraging technology, particularly focusing on getting drone and autonomous technology deployed to the field.  The FY 2027 DOW budget requests $1.45 trillion in total ($350 billion in reconciliation funding),  $58.5 billion of which would be dedicated to accelerating innovation in AI and joint all-domain command and control, with a heavy focus on an investment strategy that markedly increases funding for AI and autonomous systems.

On a slightly different vector, the Office of Strategic Capital (DOW OSC) is also growing to increase its impact and attract more private capital to critical technologies and the supply chain in six critical areas: 1) applied artificial intelligence, 2) biomanufacturing, 3) contested logistics technologies, 4) quantum and battlefield information dominance, 5) scaled directed energy, and 6) scaled hypersonics. The office was established in 2023 and its mission and authorities are codified at 10 U.S.C. §149. It uses credit, loan guarantees, and technical assistance to accelerate and scale private investment in critical supply chain technologies supporting national security. The FY 2027 Budget Request Overview plans to fund DOW OSC to the tune of $20.2 billion to foster investment in the defense industrial base.

Entering the U.S. Market: The Blue List

“The Blue List” is a reference portal of DOW-approved compliant autonomous systems and components maintained by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) for DOW, other U.S. Government departments and agencies, and industry partners.  It was originally created by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) in 2020 to quickly vet commercial technology for DOW.

The Blue List includes a UAS Framework for components and software and a UAS Cleared List for complete systems, covering components and drones that DOW has vetted, confirmed as compliant with current law and policy, and validated as cyber-secure.

Companies must meet the following requirements to be included on the framework or cleared list:

  • Secure a DOW sponsor, such as through participation in Blue UAS challenges and events.
  • Show that the product offers a unique or needed capability.
  • Demonstrate National Defense Authorization Act compliance.
  • Assure cybersecurity.
  • Provide manufacturing and traceability documentation for systems and components.

The assessment and verification process is typically conducted by approved third-party assessors, including testing and authority-to-operate requirements for full systems. Once these entry points are completed, DCMA will add approved systems to the cleared list or framework, as applicable, subject to validity periods, renewals, and extensions. Companies will need to maintain ongoing compliance requirements to remain on the list.

While these requirements are relatively straightforward, they can be expensive and time consuming. The process is made easier by relying on DOW support, establishing relationships with a DOW component that wants the product, and clearly articulating the unique value that a particular UAS or component brings to the table. Foreign companies can qualify but must meet all requirements for supply chain and national security.

Ukraine as an Incubator and Market Model

Necessity has produced world-leading innovation in the UAS space in Ukraine.  Swarms comprising groups of both drones armed with warheads and unarmed “decoy” drones have proven effective at evading Russian air defenses for long-range strikes. On June 18, Ukraine launched numerous strikes with massive drone swarms, as Russian air defenses claimed to shoot down 194 drones around Moscow and 992 countrywide, while many more successfully hit infrastructure targets. Ukrainian defense firms are also testing capabilities for swarming large numbers of cruise missiles guided by AI-equipped drones. If effective, decentralized autonomous platforms could link larger swarms without human input, negating spoofing and other communications-based counter-UAS defenses.

At the same time, Ukrainian forces and companies are co-developing new technologies to enhance their own defenses against Russian drone strikes.  In pursuit of further defense tech innovations, Ukraine’s public and private sectors have launched accelerators and incentive programs to encourage foreign collaboration and capital investments, including the Brave1 cluster, the Defence Builder ecosystem, the Defence City regulatory and economic regime, and more lenient Ukrainian export controls.

In April 2026, President Zelenskyy announced Ukraine would partially lift its ban on selling domestically produced weapons abroad, but only to countries found to be non-cooperative with Russia.  Permitted exports would be conducted through “drone deals,” which Zelenskyy described as special agreements enabling the production and supply of Ukrainian-made drones and other defense technologies.  Together, these policies will create new avenues for foreign investment in the Ukrainian defense industrial base to fund new innovations, and will allow the U.S. government and industry to gain access to Ukrainian excellence in autonomy.

The United States has much to learn from Ukrainian drone technology and policy.  As Washington issues directives for rapid procurement and development, the Ukrainian ecosystems will offer helpful institutional models and opportunities for industrial collaboration.

Emerging IP and Trade Issues

As reflected in Executive Order 14409 and National Security Presidential Memorandum-11 (NSPM-11), the Trump Administration aims to rapidly field advanced AI technology and then tailor that technology to the needs of the defense and intelligence community.  As tech companies take advantage of the public-private infrastructure and joint R&D opportunities, questions around who owns (and can exploit) data and AI models will arise.

As a threshold matter, addressing intellectual property, data, and other proprietary rights in advanced autonomous weapon systems integrating AI models will be difficult and require sustained diligence. Those rights will be complicated and may attach separately to individual components, software, training data, outputs, and the overall integrated system. And as the United States government increasingly becomes a partner in developing and refining AI or UAS platforms, it will be critical to track what technology is pre-existing and what technology was “developed exclusively with government funds,” or “developed with mixed funding” under applicable provisions of the FAR and DFARS. It will pay significant dividends to thoroughly understand the comprehensive value inherent in the systems developed for and sold to the United States.

Contractors must carefully navigate these rights to be able to leverage technologies refined in partnership with the U.S. government.  At a minimum, to maximize intellectual property rights, contractors should track and identify intellectual property being developed, and identify intellectual property during the proposal/pre-award phase (e.g. FAR 52.227-15 and DFARS 252.227-7017).  This documentation is critical for preserving intellectual property rights on products delivered to the U.S. government and can serve as a valuable administrative record if future disputes arise. Consider specifically negotiated license rights where appropriate.

The rapid integration of AI and other sensitive technologies into drones, autonomous vehicles, and defense platforms is increasing not only operational capability, but also the compliance and diligence burden on companies developing, supplying, or investing in those systems. DOJ and BIS enforcement activity already reflects this focus, including DOJ’s recent indictment of three individuals accused of diverting AI-enabled servers to China and BIS’s $252 million settlement with Applied Materials and $95 million penalty against Cadence Design Systems. For companies operating at the intersection of autonomy, AI, and defense technology, these cases highlight the need for careful export-control analysis, technology-transfer controls, end-user and end-use diligence, supply-chain traceability, and screening of foreign ownership, control, or influence risks. The message from federal authorities is clear: sensitive AI capabilities that support military, drone, or autonomous vehicle technologies will receive heightened scrutiny because “controlling the export of sensitive U.S. artificial intelligence technology is essential to safeguarding our national security,” and combatting export violations remains “among the FBI’s highest priorities.”

Autonomy, Targeting, and Contractor Liability (Taking the Human out of the Decision Loop?)

The Trump Administration appears eager to maximize the integration of AI into defense applications.  The President’s directive in NSPM-11 to update DoD Directive 3000.09 (“Autonomy in Weapon Systems”) will likely mean a new policies and procedures for DOW’s development and use of autonomous and AI-enabled weapons.  While rules of engagement and programmed restraints will continue to emanate from humans at the strategic and operational levels, so-called “human out of the loop” systems could be entrusted with identifying, selecting, and engaging targets with no human involvement.  As with conventional weapons, accurate target selection and engagement will be only as reliable as the available intelligence; however, autonomous weapons introduce additional risk and uncertainty based on how the weapons systems are designed rather than how they are used.

This scenario presents an uncertain future of potential liability for companies who design, develop, and supply autonomous technologies. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Hencely v. Fluor Corp. broadened the possibility of state tort liability for government contractors who fail to comply with government orders and directives in combat zones.  That case involved a contractor’s negligence leading to the death of an American servicemember when a local employee on Bagram Air Base detonated a suicide bomb.  In the age of AI-enabled drone swarms defending U.S. forward operating bases—as in USAFRICOM’s CURTAIN CALL exercise described above—faulty target selection and engagement could lead to friendly fire incidents.  In this scenario, courts hearing a wrongful death or other tort suit will have to grapple with who is at fault—the company who created the AI capability and platform or the government personnel who deployed it (or allowed it to deploy itself)—and whether traditional concepts of derivative sovereign immunity or preemption protect contractors when their AI systems malfunction.

Bottom Line

AI-enabled drones, swarms, and autonomous systems are rapidly reshaping defense procurement and opening significant adjacent commercial opportunities, but companies entering this market must navigate evolving government requirements, export controls, intellectual property rules, and contractor-liability risks. Fluet’s Government Contracts and International Trade teams can help companies pursue these opportunities while managing the legal and compliance challenges in this fast-moving landscape.