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Artificial intelligence has rapidly evolved from a niche lobbying issue into a central pillar of corporate influence in Washington. Nowhere is this shift more evident than in the defense industry, where both legacy defense contractors and an influx of AI-first startups are making the technology a core focus of their lobbying efforts.
AI barely registered in federal lobbying disclosures for much of the 2000s and early 2010s, with only a few lobbyists mentioning the term in their mandatory disclosure reports, and often only reporting one lobbying instance in a year. That began to change in the late 2010s, when the number of organizations reporting AI-related lobbying started climbing into the dozens and then past 100, driven in part by companies branding existing analytics, automation and targeting systems as artificial intelligence
The sharp turn came in 2023, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of lobbying disclosure reports. The number of AI-tagged clients tripled over the prior year’s total, and the count of AI-related reports more than doubled.
In 2025, lobbyists reported representing 774 organizations on AI issues, and they filed more than 3,500 reports that mention the topic — increases of 423 percent and 505 percent, respectively, from 2020.
The explosion of AI lobbying occurred across the economy, with significant jumps in a handful of sectors From 2023 to 2024, the number of AI-active clients in the health care sector rose by 64 percent, and the clients total in the finance/insurance/real estate sector increased by 96 percent, significantly outstripping the 44 percent growth rate of AI lobbying across the broader dataset. Even as these sectors continue to spend hundreds of millions on traditional issues like Medicare reimbursement or banking regulations, AI has become a high-velocity addition to their agendas. In 2025 alone, AI-active firms in the health and FIRE sectors reported a combined $503 million in total lobbying expenditures.
While the defense sector has not experienced the same rapid expansion of AI-related lobbying, the issue is embedded in the work of traditional defense conglomerates, which treat AI as a core component of massive omnibus bills. In 2024 and 2025, firms like Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls Industries, and Honeywell International maintained multimillion-dollar lobbying footprints that increasingly cited AI within the context of specific platforms. Huntington Ingalls, for example, reported 2025 lobbying efforts that tied AI directly to unmanned surface vehicles and other programs. Meanwhile, Honeywell’s 2025 engagements with the Navy linked AI funding to broader fiscal 2026 defense appropriations, positioning AI as a critical layer within cybersecurity and quantum computing programs rather than a standalone line item.
Defense Contractors Bolt AI Onto Existing Work
Inside this broader surge, the major defense contractors look less like new entrants and more like incumbents updating their vocabulary. Companies long active on appropriations, weapons programs and export rules are increasingly adding the AI label to their multimillion-dollar annual lobbying totals.
Over time, their filings have begun to bundle artificial intelligence into existing projects and areas of focus, including missile defense, aircraft and shipbuilding, intelligence and surveillance systems, and “digital transformation” projects across the Pentagon.
Lockheed Martin’s recent lobbying for the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, for example, grouped artificial intelligence into the same line item as hypersonic missiles, munitions and the F-35 aircraft program. Similarly, Huntington Ingalls reported lobbying on “FORTIS AI” alongside core maritime projects like the Columbia Class submarine, the DDG-51 destroyer, and the Carrier Replacement Program. Boeing’s disclosures show a parallel trend, bunding “artificial intelligence policy” with its work on unmanned aerial vehicles and U.S. Coast Guard acquisitions.
New AI‑First Defense Firms Rush the Field
Recent lobbying data has also captured a new set of smaller, AI-native firms that have enlisted lobbying support. These firms focus on autonomous systems, battlefield mapping, AI‑enabled surveillance and decision‑support tools.
Many of them started with modest spending, tens of thousands of dollars in a single year, but some have grown quickly into six‑figure lobbying programs aimed at a narrow set of targets such as the Armed Services and Appropriations committees, and the defense and research agencies most likely to fund pilot programs. Their filings tend to emphasize artificial intelligence more prominently than those of the primes, often referencing AI directly in client descriptions or issue notes, a sign that lobbying is part of how they establish themselves as serious players in the defense ecosystem.
The shift towards AI-centric defense is underscored by aggressive lobbying of emerging technology firms. For instance, Torch.ai focuses its efforts on the annual legislation that authorizes Defense Department activity, specifically targeting “provisions related to artificial intelligence, machine learning architecture, and data fusion.” Similarly, Shield AI has become a regular fixture in Department of Defense discussions, joining a growing cohort of AI-focused registrants like Scale AI, SandboxAQ, and Applied Intuition.
Take for example Applied Intuition, which saw its lobbying spend jump from $550,000 in 2024 to $910,000 in 2025 as it targeted the Defense appropriations bills and support for deploying autonomous systems for the Navy and Air Force. Newer entrants like Accrete AI and Rebellion Defense have spent sixs figure on lobbying efforts focused almost exclusively on high-stakes military applications. Accrete AI’s filings specifically highlight “AI and national security” within the Intelligence Authorization Act, while Rebellion Defense lobbies for AI tools designed for “making sense of the battlespace” and “protecting the cyber domain.”
Disclosures for AI-native firms show annual lobbying expenditures that reflect their specialized focus. Scale AI and Shield AI for example, reported programs of $1.2 million and $1.4 million, respectively. Shield AI’s filings specifically reference “autonomy technology for maneuver policies” and unmanned systems.
Governance and Civil Rights Groups Are Active, But Outspent
The AI industry is not the only voice trying to shape the implementation of artificial intelligence in the national security space. Civil society organizations and advocacy groups focused on AI risk, civil rights and democratic protections have also deployed lobbyists to influence AI‑related policy-makig filing on issues such as biometric surveillance, algorithmic discrimination, deepfakes and election integrity.
But the contrast in scale is stark. Where a major defense or dual‑use firm may report lobbying in the millions of dollars per year, these governance‑focused organizations typically operate in the low six figures or less.
This disparity in resources is reflected in the 2025 filing data, where the financial footprint of civil rights and policy-focused groups is dwarfed by the major industry players. For example, Lockheed Martin and Microsoft reported total annual lobbying expenditures of $15.7 million and $10.1 million respectively, leveraging their scale to bundle AI into multibillion-dollar defense and infrastructure contracts. On the other hand, governance-focused organizations operate on a much smaller scale. The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, which lobbies on critical issues surrounding algorithmic bias and surveillance, reported $1.8 million in expenditures, and the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund spent $50,000.
In 2025, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law advocated for the Artificial Intelligence Civil Rights Act in an effort to regulate AI, among other bills. The NAACP has lobbied on AI’s intersection with fair housing and civil rights, and Public Knowledge has tried to influence policymaking at the intersection of AI governance and intellectual property.
The New Infrastructure of Influence
Over the past two decades, artificial intelligence has transitioned from a marginal topic in federal lobbying to a major area of focus. What began as a niche technical category has become a standard component of legislative advocacy, as evidenced by the growth in both the number of participating organizations and the volume of specific filings mentioning artificial intelligence. This trend shows a dual-track strategy: In the defense sector, established industry leaders are systematically integrating AI into hardware and appropriations requests, while a newer tier of specialized firms are securing a foothold by lobbying for specific autonomous and algorithmic capabilities.
While civil society and governance organizations have increased their engagement to address the societal and ethical implications of the technology, their collective financial and administrative footprint remains significantly smaller than that of the commercial sector. As AI continues to transition from an emerging technology to a fixture of government contracting, lobbying records serve as an indicator of which interests are successfully shaping the regulatory and budgetary framework for the next wave of defense technology.
This story was originally published by OpenSecrets.
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