White House officially makes AI a key piece of its government efficiency agenda

Many agency leaders had previously discussed how artificial intelligence can streamline operations and get more work done with fewer federal employees.

Eric White@FEDERALNEWSCAST

September 29, 2025 12:09 pm

< a min read

The Trump administration sees artificial intelligence as a key piece of its government efficiency agenda. Many agency leaders have talked about how AI can streamline operations and get more work done with fewer federal employees. Now the White House is officially making AI one of its science and technology priorities for fiscal year 2027.
Recent staffing losses at the U.S. Forest Service have caused the agency to put big modernization plans on the back burner. The Forest Service has been looking to modernize the way it tracks and maps wildfires. But amid the Trump administration’s workforce overhauls, the Government Accountability Office said the agency has struggled to dedicate resources toward that long-term planning. Agency officials said more recently, they’ve managed to staff back up to their previous levels. But GAO said the next steps for actually improving the technologies remain unclear.
The Department of the Air Force will now manage Software as a Service subscriptions as a commodity-based subscription service rather than a licensed software asset. A new memo requires the Air Force to use enterprise contract vehicles for SaaS instead of buying it as a contract line item. The centralized approach will allow the service to improve visibility, reduce cost and ensure standardized governance across the force. The new policy also requires vendors to guarantee unrestricted government data ownership, data transfer rights and the ability to download, migrate and access data in a usable format at no additional cost.
The Senate has confirmed Mike Dodd as the first assistant secretary of defense for critical technologies. The new role makes Dodd the Pentagon’s chief advocate for unifying and advancing investments in critical defense technologies. The Defense Department created the role last year to “better position the office of the under secretary of defense for research and engineering to execute upon the mission of preserving the nation’s technological edge.” His top three priorities include reforming DoD acquisition, strengthening the adoption of critical technologies in key fields and planning for transition from the outset of each project. Dodd will also continue to serve in his current role as the Defense Innovation Unit’s acting director.

The Census Bureau said it plans to test using postal workers as census takers. A Federal Register notice said the agency will run practice counts for the 2030 Census early next year in at least two locations. Among the candidates are western Texas, tribal lands in Arizona, Colorado Springs, Colo., western North Carolina, Spartanburg, S.C. and Huntsville, Ala. It’s not the first time the idea has come up, but a 2011 GAO report found the approach wouldn’t be cost effective, considering postal employees’ relatively high pay compared to temporary Census workers.
Federal correctional officers have become the latest employees to lose their collective bargaining abilities. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has ended its union contract with the American Federation of Government Employees, effective immediately. The now-canceled contract was initially expected to last until May 2029, and covered over 30,000 correctional officers. AFGE officials are warning that the loss of union protections for correctional officers will exacerbate already existing workforce challenges, like understaffing and low pay.
The IRS is seeing “major progress” on its IT modernization initiatives. But the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said the agency hasn’t decommissioned any of its legacy systems yet — one of the ultimate goals of this project. IRS IT officials, however, told TIGTA that they are getting closer to that target. According to TIGTA, about 63% of IRS IT systems are considered legacy systems, and the IRS spent over $39 million in fiscal 2024 to maintain and operate these legacy systems.

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