A Seattle defense-tech company has landed a roughly $20 million production contract with the U.S. Marine Corps to build autonomous unmanned ground vehicles that operate without any human steering, remote control, or even communications link. Delivery is expected in early 2027.
Overland AI announced the deal in late June. The contract came through APFIT, the Pentagon’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program, which was created in fiscal year 2022 specifically to move proven technology into the field faster by cutting through standard procurement red tape. The award was structured as a production Other Transaction Agreement.
“This is a vote of confidence from the Marines that the technology that we have is ready for the mission,” said Greg Okopal, Overland AI’s co-founder and chief operating officer.
The vehicles are meant to move ammunition and supplies for Marines while keeping troops out of harm’s way. They fall under the Marine Corps’ Marine Air Defense Integrated System, known as MADIS, which Okopal describes as a mix of vehicle-mounted sensors and effectors built to defend against drones and other airborne threats.
No Remote Control, No Reliance on Comms
Unlike drones or remotely piloted ground robots, Overland’s vehicles do not need a person driving or monitoring them during a mission.
“Our vehicles, you task them with a mission, you press execute, those vehicles will execute that mission whether you have communications with them or not, whether you’re paying attention to them or not, they are fully autonomous,” Okopal said.
The company says the vehicles can operate beyond the line of sight and in GPS-denied areas, still completing their assigned mission if communications go down.
“All battlefields now are electronic, contested environments, right? So you cannot necessarily rely on distant comms to complete your mission,” Okopal said.
The vehicles are built to read the terrain on their own, navigating ditches, inclines and boulders off-road. Rather than being programmed to simply follow a route, the AI is designed around completing an entire mission — for instance, directing a fleet of vehicles to establish surveillance around a set of coordinates and manage any threats that appear.
Why Ground Vehicles, Not Just Drones
Overland AI argues that despite the attention paid to aerial drones on modern battlefields, “wars are still won on the ground.” Chief of Staff Chris Merz pointed to Ukraine as an example of where unmanned ground vehicles have moved beyond hauling supplies into direct combat roles.
“They started with using them for sustainment but increasingly you’re seeing them used in combat operations, taking and holding terrain… I really think that is the future application of uncrewed and autonomous ground vehicles and we’ll start to see that more in future conflicts,” Merz said.
Okopal said the core purpose of the program comes down to protecting personnel. “The very important thing is getting Marines and soldiers for the Army as well out of danger,” he said.
What the Marine Corps Says
The Marine Corps provided the following statement:
“The U.S. Marine Corps Program Manager Ground-Based Air Defense (PM GBAD) has awarded an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement to Overland AI to develop and procure Autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicles (AUGVs). Designed to sustain the Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) family of systems across contested littoral and distributed operating environments, these AUGVs bridge the ‘last tactical mile’ logistics gap by automating ammunition resupply and reducing risk to warfighters. While initial efforts focus on autonomous logistics distribution via resilient, AI-driven networks, future capability spirals will integrate modular sensor packages and effectors to extend the active detection, tracking, identification, and defeat of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), rotary-wing aircraft, and low-altitude fixed-wing threats.”
The contract reflects a broader push across militaries worldwide to fold AI-driven autonomy into everyday operations, aiming to cut human risk while speeding up battlefield logistics and response.
