Internal documents reviewed by the Washington Post reveal that in the weeks following the terrorist attacks, a Google employee in its cloud division ramped up requests for the defense ministry to get increased access to the company’s AI technology. 

In one document, a Google employee warned the company that the IDF and defense ministry would turn to Amazon if the company didn’t grant them further access to its AI technology. In mid-November 2023, the employee thanked a coworker for assisting in the defense ministry’s request. However, it is not indicated in the documents what the AI technology was used for.

The Washington Examiner previously reported how U.S. military intelligence units are using AI to locate enemies on the battlefield. 

Additional documents were dated from the spring and summer of 2024, in which Google employees were requesting additional access to AI technology. 

Revelations of Google increasing the IDF and defense ministry’s access to its AI technology comes following mass protest by Google employees over the company’s involvement in Project Nimbus, an IDF project started in 2021 between Google and Amazon to provide cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli government. Google said its involvement in the project was “not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”

Google fired more than 50 employees who voiced their concern that work on Project Nimbus was actually being used to aid intelligence programs that would cause harm to Palestinian civilians.

However, at a conference last year, Gaby Portnoy, director general of the Israeli government’s National Cyber Directorate, alluded that the Nimbus contract directly aided combat applications.

“Thanks to the Nimbus public cloud, phenomenal things are happening during the fighting, these things play a significant part in the victory — I will not elaborate,” he said.

Since the onslaught of attacks, the IDF turned to Habsora, an AI targeting system, to track down thousands of human and infrastructure targets to attack. 

Last summer, when Google granted the IDF and defense ministry more AI technology access, a group of more than 100 employees emailed Google managers and members of the company’s human rights team asking for a review of Google’s work with the Israeli military.

Documents reveal that as recent as November 2024, Israel’s military was still using Google for its latest AI technology. 

The Washington Examiner reached out to Google for comment.