Shield AI X-BAT

Shield AI's X-BAT is a jet-powered, tail-sitting VTOL autonomous combat aircraft flown by the company's Hivemind AI pilot, designed to take off and land vertically from a trailer, ship deck or austere site — no runway — and fly multirole missions over a claimed 3,700+ km range.

Overview

X-BAT is the flagship aircraft program of San Diego defense-tech firm Shield AI, unveiled in Washington on October 22, 2025 and billed by the company as the world's first AI-piloted VTOL fighter jet. It is a Group 5 uncrewed combat aircraft built around two ideas the company treats as inseparable: a tail-sitting vertical-takeoff-and-landing airframe that removes the runway from air power, and the Hivemind autonomy stack that removes the remote pilot, letting the aircraft fly with no GPS, no communications link and no human input when those are denied, per Shield AI. President Ryan Tseng told Aviation Week at Eurosatory 2026 that X-BAT is "the world's first autonomous combat aircraft, as opposed to collaborative combat aircraft" — built to find and destroy targets by itself, with a human giving the final command to fire, rather than as an adjunct tethered to a crewed fighter. The aircraft has not yet flown; first vertical flights are planned for late 2026.

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