There’s a new position in the U.S. government: Federal chief artificial intelligence officer. Gregory Barbaccia has begun to refer to himself as the Federal CAIO, in addition to his current role as the federal government’s chief information officer. A recent interview with CNBC referred to him this way and a federal official focused on AI confirmed to FedScoop that Barbaccia had used that title in a recent meeting. In a social media post last week, Barbaccia also used both titles. The new title comes amid the Trump administration’s continued focus on federal adoption of artificial intelligence. It follows the White House AI Action Plan, which was released last week and endorsed “transformative use of AI [that] can help deliver the highly responsive government the American people expect and deserve.” Still, the AI Action Plan makes no mention of a new position of CAIO for the whole federal government. Neither does the executive order that established the council or subsequent Office of Management and Budget actions. There was no federal CAIO in the Biden administration, and it’s not clear any formal action has been taken to establish the position.

Federal agencies are increasingly turning to generative artificial intelligence to further their missions, according to a new watchdog report that found use cases of the emerging technology jumping by ninefold in a selection of nearly a dozen agencies last year.  In a report published Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office said generative AI use cases across a group of 11 federal agencies increased from 32 to 282 cases from 2023 to 2024, per an analysis of those agencies’ inventories. The GAO laid out several ways these agencies harnessed generative AI last year, stating the technology can “improve written communications, information access efficiency, and program status tracking.”  Examples included the Department of Veterans Affairs using automation for medical imaging processing in veterans’ diagnostic services, along with the Department of Health and Human Services’ initiative to extract information from publications regarding the containment of the poliovirus. HHS reported the largest jump out of the 11 agencies, going from seven generative AI use cases in 2023 to 116 in 2024, according to the report. 

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The US government has its first federal chief AI officer; Generative AI use is ‘escalating rapidly’ in federal agencies

The China-based artificial intelligence model DeepSeek isn’t available for widespread use at the Department of Energy, but approval of some elements may be possible following a study by two of its national labs, an agency IT official said Tuesday. DeepSeek’s launch has prompted congressional proposals to rein in its use in government and proactive bans by several federal agencies, including DOE. But during a panel at a FedScoop-produced Salesforce event, Bridget Carper — the agency’s deputy CIO for architecture, engineering, technology and innovation — said the model has still been studied by two DOE national labs. Carper said the agency allowed two of its labs — which she didn’t identify — to look at the system “because there’s value in testing the open models. There’s value in understanding the performance. How does it actually compare?” The separate labs looked at the model to see if they could do comparisons with alternatives they had, Carper said. Those studies also took place with guardrails. They were controlled, sanctioned and fully documented, she said. And ultimately, they found some potential benefits.

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering is taking over the “authority, direction, and control” of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office, according to new guidance issued last Thursday by Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg that presents an accelerated plan to disrupt and transform how the emerging technology is adopted across the Defense Department and military. Feinberg wrote in a memorandum to Pentagon leadership, combatant commanders, and defense agency and DOD field activity directors that “by aligning the CDAO under the USD(R&E), we create a powerful innovation engine that can deliver Al superiority from laboratory to battlefield.” The CDAO had previously been a direct report to the deputy SecDef. DefenseScoop obtained a copy of the directive from a source who requested anonymity to share it last Friday, after others alerted the publication of its creation. A defense official subsequently acknowledged the memo’s existence in an email — noting that the CDAO will continue to execute all current statutory responsibilities without interruption during this transition. The defense official said the realignment is “the next step in making a uniform, AI-first push for the [DOD],” adding that it won’t create additional review layers or bureaucratic processes.

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Department of Energy national labs study DeepSeek; A major shakeup in the Pentagon’s AI enterprise

As part of its ongoing work with the National Nuclear Security Administration, Anthropic is now working on a new tool designed to help detect when new AI systems output troubling discussions of nuclear weapons. Artificial intelligence systems have the potential to uncover all sorts of new chemical compounds. While many of those discoveries might be promising, and yield, for example, formulas to help propel nuclear energy sources, they might also risk outputting information that could make it easier to design a nuclear weapon. In a new blog post, the company said that along with the NNSA and the Energy Department’s national laboratories, it’s developed a classifier that’s able to automatically determine whether nuclear conversation with an AI chatbot is benign or concerning, with 96% accuracy. The system was developed based on an NNSA-curated list of nuclear risk indicators. 

Individuals will soon be able to verify their identities using their passports on the General Services Administration’s Login.gov platform, marking the agency’s latest efforts to boost user friendliness on the single-sign-on service.  According to a GSA announcement published Wednesday, individuals will soon be able to submit a picture of their passport’s biographical page during Login.gov’s identity proofing process. Once Login.gov receives a passport photo, it will then check the photo against passport records managed by the State Department, the GSA said, noting State manages a “privacy-preserving” API for this. Login.gov gives the public the option to log into multiple federal, state and local government websites using just one account once a user’s identity is verified. Under its current format, users looking to create a Login.gov account are often required to take a picture of themselves and submit that with a photo of their state-issued ID or driver’s license for comparison. The move to accept passports is part of a new partnership between GSA’s Technology Transformation Services and the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, with the GSA describing it as a “first-of-its-kind partnership between federal agencies to use authoritative government records as a source for identity verification.”

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Anthropic developing a new tool to detect concerning AI talk of nuclear weapons; Login.gov will start accepting passports for identity verification

President Donald Trump called for improvements to federal government websites in a Thursday executive order, arguing the U.S. government “has lagged behind in usability and aesthetics.” The new directive is focused on both digital and physical spaces and launches an initiative it calls “America by Design” to achieve the administration’s goals. That effort will be led by a new National Design Studio and chief design officer that will coordinate agency actions. Federal agencies, for their part, will be required to “produce initial results” by July 4, 2026.  The executive order states that “the National Design Studio will advise agencies on how to reduce duplicative design costs, use standardized design to enhance the public’s trust in high-impact service providers, and dramatically improve the quality of experiences offered to the American public.”Specifically, agencies are required to prioritize improving websites and physical spaces “that have a major impact on Americans’ everyday lives.” The administrator of the General Services Administration is also instructed to consult with the new design official to update the U.S. Web Design System consistent with the order. The U.S. Web Design System is a community to help agencies with design and maintenance of their digital presence that was initially established by 18F, which the Trump administration eliminated, and the U.S. Digital Service, which was turned into the DOGE.

Google will make its Gemini AI models and tools available to the federal government for less than 50 cents through a new General Services Administration deal, making the company the latest to offer its technology to agencies at just a marginal cost. Google, which announced the launch of  “Gemini for Government” on Thursday, said the tool is a “complete AI platform” that will include high-profile Gemini models. The new government-focused product suite comes as other AI companies — including xAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI — begin to offer similar public sector versions of their enterprise AI products. Unlike those other companies, though, Google already has an extensive federal government cloud business. For now, the government Gemini product will be limited to Google’s cloud programs. The platform will include access to NotebookLM AI, a research and note taking tool, and AI agents for deep research and idea generation. The platform will cost 47 cents per agency for one year and the offer will stand through 2026, according to the GSA.

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Trump targets federal web design in new executive order; Google’s ‘Gemini for Government’ offers AI platform to federal agencies for 47 cents

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy plans to sunset several outdated agency IT systems and consolidate technology management under a new program called 1DoT, according to a memo sent earlier this week.  1DoT, Duffy wrote, is meant to “unify” the department, whose components include the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The 1DoT initiative is supposed to eliminate redundancies and focus on “efficiency, accountability, and operational excellence,” Duffy explained in the email, which was viewed by FedScoop. The memo lays into myriad problems with the Transportation Department’s $3.5 billion annual IT portfolio, calling its systems “outdated, expensive, and unsecure.” Duffy said: “This complicated web of technology is more than just a nuisance. Less efficiency means longer wait times for project completion, grants signed, or safety reviews conducted.

Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for researching and engineering and the Pentagon’s CTO, has taken on the role of acting director of the Silicon Valley-headquartered Defense Innovation Unit in the wake of Doug Beck’s resignation, DefenseScoop has learned. Beck unexpectedly resigned on Monday. The Defense Department has not provided an explanation for his sudden resignation. However, a defense official confirmed that Michael will fill the role and Michael Dodd has been appointed as the acting deputy director, saying they are “laser-focused on driving innovation and enhancing the Department’s ability to deliver groundbreaking commercial technologies to empower the American warfighter.” Dodd has been a principal at DIU since December 2022. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump nominated him to be assistant secretary of defense for critical technologies, which falls under the Pentagon’s R&E directorate.

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Major changes to the Transportation Department’s IT management; A shakeup in the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit

Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that scraped the internet for images of people’s faces for its database, is building a tool to deal with an emerging problem: AI-generated faces. In comments to FedScoop, Hal Lambert, the company’s co-CEO, said Clearview AI is dealing with the problem by building a new tool for detecting these manipulated images for its customers, many of whom are federal law enforcement agencies. Lambert was named co-CEO of the company earlier this year, after the company board voted to replace its original top executive. Clearview AI has collected billions of images from the internet, including from social media accounts that are set to public, according to the company. Clearview AI has created a database of those images and made it available to a wide range of customers, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government of Ukraine, and law enforcement officials that seek to identify victims of child pornography. Clearview AI has also sold the tool to police departments. The company touts its facial recognition efficacy scores from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. But deepfakes could make building tools like Clearview AI’s more complicated. Right now, deepfakes, or images that are edited or enhanced with artificial intelligence, haven’t been a major problem for the company, Lambert told FedScoop. Still, the company is developing a tool that is supposed to tag images that might be AI-generated, with the goal of having it ready for customers by the end of the year. Lambert did not share further details. 

The Trump administration is signaling to industry and allies that it is considering a broader set of actions related to quantum computing, both to improve the nation’s capacity to defend against future quantum-enabled hacks and ensure the United States promotes and maintains global dominance around a key national security technology. The discussions include potentially taking significant executive action, such as one or more executive orders, a national plan similar to the AI Action Plan issued earlier this year, and a possible mandate for federal agencies to move up their timelines for migrating to post-quantum protections, multiple sources told CyberScoop. None of the sources CyberScoop spoke with could provide a definitive timeline for an official rollout, but multiple executives in the quantum computing industry and former national security officials said the White House has signaled serious interest in taking bolder action to promote and shape the development of the technology. Some felt official announcements could come as soon as this week, while others cautioned the process could stretch into the coming months.

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Clearview AI is building a deepfake detection tool; Trump administration plans expansion of U.S. quantum strategy

The Environmental Protection Agency’s pledge to “get out of the way” on chemical reviews to accelerate the buildout of artificial intelligence data centers doesn’t mean those reviews would be any less “robust,” a top EPA nominee told lawmakers Wednesday. Appearing before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, Douglas Troutman — President Donald Trump’s pick for assistant administrator for toxic substances — was pressed by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., about comments made by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin last month following a White House roundtable with AI and data center leaders. In a Sept. 18 press release, Zeldin announced that the EPA would begin prioritizing the review of new chemicals — under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) — that would be used in data center projects. Markey asked Troutman, a former chemical industry lobbyist, what provisions in federal toxic safety laws indicate the EPA can “get out of the way of reviewing chemicals for safety.” Troutman responded that “nothing will change with regard to the robust review based on the risk-based statute enacted under Section Five of TSCA.” Markey appeared unconvinced, telling Troutman that if he’s confirmed, he will “be under orders from Administrator Zeldin to get out of the way.” The Massachusetts Democrat made the case that “big tech bosses” with ties to the administration could lean on the agency to bypass regular review protocols.

Voting rights groups are asking a court to block an ongoing Trump administration effort to merge disparate federal and state voter data into a massive citizenship and voter fraud database. Last week, the League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and five individuals sued the federal government in D.C. District Court, saying it was ignoring decades of federal privacy law to create enormous “national data banks” of personal information on Americans. On Tuesday, the coalition, represented by Democracy Forward Foundation, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and Fair Elections Center, asked the court for an emergency injunction to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to transform the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements into an immense technological tool to track potential noncitizens registered to vote. Until this year, SAVE was an incomplete and limited federal database meant to track immigrants seeking federal benefits. In an Oct. 7 court filing, the groups said an immediate injunction was needed to prevent permanent privacy harms due to the “illegal and secretive consolidation of millions of Americans’ sensitive personal data across government agencies into centralized data systems” through SAVE. 

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EPA nominee: Chemical reviews won’t be compromised for AI data centers; Voting groups fight Trump’s SAVE database overhaul

Federal agencies’ latest status updates on how they’re using artificial intelligence reveal persistent barriers and variability on where agencies stand with ”high-impact” use cases. The release of the 2025 AI compliance plans offers one of the first in-depth glimpses at how federal agencies are addressing issues of AI risk management, technical capacity and workforce readiness under the second Trump administration. Those documents, which were required under the Trump administration’s AI governance memo to agencies, were supposed to be released publicly by Sept. 30. As of publication time, FedScoop located roughly 20 plans and 14 strategies across 22 agencies. For nine of the roughly two dozen Chief Financial Officers Act agencies, FedScoop was unable to find either a plan or a strategy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, produced only strategies. FedScoop and DefenseScoop attempted to contact the CFO Act agencies that didn’t produce both documents, but the agencies either didn’t respond or didn’t provide the documents. Two of those agencies, NASA and the Justice Department, noted the government shutdown in their responses, and both the DOJ and Department of Defense indicated they were working to post at a later date. Agencies were also required to submit AI strategies for the first time this year. Those documents contain some of the same information as the compliance documents, including plans to train the workforce, examples of use cases, and systems for governance. The compliance plans, meanwhile, which are in their second year, have changed only slightly from their previous iterations, with some agencies showing progress on their implementation of the technology and risk management practices.

A top Senate Democrat introduced legislation Thursday to extend and rename an expired information-sharing law, and make it retroactive to cover the lapse that began Oct. 1. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced the Protecting America from Cyber Threats (PACT) Act, to replace the expired Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) that has provided liability protections for organizations that share cyber threat data with each other and the federal government. Industry groups and cyber professionals have called those protections vital, sometimes describing the 2015 law as the most successful cyber legislation ever passed. The 2015 law shares an acronym with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which some Republicans — including the chairman of Peters’ panel, Rand Paul of Kentucky — have accused of engaging in social media censorship. As CISA 2015 has lapsed and Peters has tried to renew it, “some people think that’s a reauthorization of the agency,” Peters told reporters Thursday in explaining the new bill name. 

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How federal agencies are tackling AI use under Trump; Another attempt to extend CISA 2015 law

The Department of Heath and Human Services has been leaning into the use of artificial intelligence to drive better health outcomes for the American public, highlighted by the rollout of ChatGPT across the agency early this fall. In particular, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been a leader in generative AI adoption since 2023. And Travis Hoppe, CDC’s chief AI officer, believes AI innovation can continue to move the needle on public health operations. Hoppe joined me recently onstage at FedTalks to share the latest on CDC’s AI journey, how the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan is guiding the agency’s implementation and what’s next.

The National Nuclear Security Administration is looking for information on potential AI uses for its mission, following an executive order to establish an integrated AI platform that will fuel scientific discovery. In a request for information posted to SAM.gov on Monday, the Department of Energy subcomponent that oversees the nation’s nuclear stockpile said it’s exploring the use of the budding technology, and specifically requested information about its use in classified environments, best practices for data curation, and how to approach developing and enhancing AI models, among other things. The request comes just a week after the Trump administration launched the “Genesis Mission,” aimed at scientific discovery through AI. That effort will not only create an AI platform for such discovery, but it will also depend on the country’s existing research and development infrastructure, including DOE and its national labs. To further the Genesis program, NNSA said it’s proactively exploring the use of AI for its “critical operations to accelerate nuclear weapons development timelines, ensuring our deterrent remains responsive, effective, and state-of-the-art against evolving global threats.”

Software company SAP inked a new agreement with the General Services Administration to offer federal agencies access to its services at significantly discounted rates, deepening its longstanding partnership with the federal government. The GSA announced the OneGov deal Tuesday, stating that the agreement offers up to 80 percent discounts on SAP’s database, cloud, and analytics services. The agency estimated this will lead to $165 million in savings for federal agencies. Specifically, agencies will be able to access products related to SAP’s database and data management services with an 80 percent discount. SAP’s cloud services, including SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Analytics Cloud and HR Payroll, will be offered at a 35 percent discount, GSA said.

Also in this episode: Databricks VP of Public Sector Todd Schroeder joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on why agencies are prioritizing the use of AI that works across existing data environments, saving time and infrastructure costs. This segment was sponsored by Databricks.

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How the CDC is using AI to revolutionize public health

A bill that would overhaul how the federal government purchases software has found itself in a familiar place: moving forward in the House while awaiting Senate consideration with just a few weeks left in the congressional calendar. The Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets (SAMOSA) Act advanced out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, teeing it up for a vote in the full chamber. The SAMOSA Act, which would direct federal agencies to assess their software licensing practices and streamline future IT buying decisions to avoid duplicative purchases, was reintroduced in the House in September following the Senate’s move to do the same in July. The bill passed the House a year ago but stalled out in the upper chamber, despite backing from a host of software and IT trade groups, including the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the Alliance for Digital Innovation, NetChoice, OpenPolicy and the Software Information Industry Association. Congress has been trying to move forward with the SAMOSA Act since at least 2022. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., noted during Tuesday’s markup that the current iteration of the SAMOSA Act is “identical” to what passed the chamber last year.

In other news: The Small Business Administration may soon be forced to confront the flawed rollout of an online certification platform it launched late in the Biden administration.The House on Monday passed a bill that would require the SBA to implement nearly a dozen recommendations made in a Government Accountability Office report about the agency’s Unified Certification Platform for small business contracting assistance. The lawmakers behind the SBA IT Modernization Reporting Act — Reps. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., and Brian Jack, R-Ga. — believe the legislation will help the agency avoid various pitfalls that plagued the UCP, helping it better develop and manage digital projects going forward. The UCP project was launched in 2023 with the goal of easing small businesses’ interactions with the SBA’s contract assistance programs. But deployment of the platform was delayed and applications for certification were paused in August 2024. The UCP went live two months later, but according to the GAO, work to migrate data and secure the system was incomplete. House Small Business Committee Chair Roger Williams said before Monday’s vote that the “failed … portal rollout resulted in delays, errors and cybersecurity risks, shutting out small businesses from the vital government contracting opportunities.”

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Agency software-buying bill advances in the House

A podcast covering the latest news & trends facing top government leaders on topics such as technology, management & workforce. Hosted by Billy Mitchell on FedScoop and released Monday-Friday.

New tracks tagged #Fedscoop