AI Will Transform The Federal Government Sooner Than You Think

AI is coming to the Government faster than you think.

The U.S. federal government is actively exploring the potential of generative AI across a wide spectrum of agencies and use cases. The Federal Government – based on recent guidance – is required to publish a refreshed list of AI use cases annually. Both overall guidance for how the Federal government is thinking about AI, and the inventory list is available on AI.gov.

The inventory submitted says a lot about where the future may be headed as it relates to technology and the Federal Government.

There are many potentially high impact use cases outlined in the CSV – which is over 700 rows. Some examples that stood out to me were:

• NASA scientists are using GANs to expand training datasets for Earth science models, exponentially accelerating research cycles.
• The VA is piloting an AI-powered app that ingests wearable sensor data to provide veterans with personalized physical therapy guidance.
• USAID has launched a Media Early Warning System that leverages GANs to detect disinformation narratives in manipulated images/videos.
• The FDA is developing NLP tools to automatically flag medication safety issues in lengthy drug application documents.

This document is the potential roadmap for many new startups to create big companies that serve the government sphere.

There are some other, more analytical observations that stand out based on the data. The top agencies based on the number of generative AI use cases identified were:

• National Energy Technology Laboratory: 127
• NIH: 47
• FDA: 44
• USDA: 39
• NOAA: 36

There were 49 – ‘Big Data’ use cases identified in the CSV. Around a third of the use cases identified in the document focused on forecasting and predictive analytics (I wrote about AI and data analysis previously for Forbes). There is a lot of focus on risk management and ethics in the accompanying PDF.

Unlike previous technology adoption cycles, the Federal Government does seem prepared for the coming AI wave. This is a must-follow topic for anyone investing or building in AI – the government – as in previous innovation cycles – could be a huge investor, customer, and driver of AI technology.