Musk's DOGE team developing AI chatbot for US government: Report
What's the story
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is said to be working on an AI chatbot dubbed GSAi, for the US General Services Administration, according to WIRED. GSAi's development comes as part of President Donald Trump's AI-first strategy to modernize the federal government with advanced technology. The main goal of the GSAi effort is to boost the productivity of some 12,000 GSA employees. These workers oversee office buildings, contracts, and IT infrastructure for the federal government.
Project insight
Thomas Shedd hints at GSAi project
Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla employee who now heads Technology Transformation Services, the technology arm of the GSA, hinted at the GSAi project during a recent meeting. He said he wanted to create a centralized location for contracts that can be analyzed, as per the audio recording obtained by WIRED. This is exactly what DOGE plans to do with the AI tools, including the chatbot, for sifting through massive volumes of contract and procurement data.
Rapid implementation
Swift adoption of AI tools amid criticism
The decision to build a custom chatbot comes after GSA and Google discussed its Gemini offering. Despite the Biden administration's cautionary guidance on emerging technologies, President Trump has ordered his team to remove any obstacles to US achieving "global AI dominance." This has prompted DOGE to rapidly adopt more AI tools, even as federal employees, the labor unions, Democrats in Congress, and civil society groups criticize it.
Cost reduction
AI initiatives aim to reduce federal budget
DOGE's AI efforts are part of wider attempts to cut the federal budget and speed up existing processes. For instance, DOGE members at the Department of Education are said to be using AI tools to analyze spending and programs, The Washington Post reported. The GSAi chatbot project could provide similar benefits by allowing workers to draft memos quicker.
Coding assistance
DOGE explores AI coding agents for productivity boost
On Monday, Shedd emphasized the deployment of "AI coding agents" as one of the agency's top priorities. These agents can help engineers automatically generate, edit, and answer questions about software code to boost productivity and minimize errors. Initially, DOGE eyed Cursor, a coding assistant developed by Anysphere but is now pushing to install Microsoft's GitHub Copilot.