Agencies have cleared AI executive order’s talent benchmarks, GAO says

A key component of the landmark executive order on artificial intelligence issued by President Joe Biden last year was meeting a handful of requirements aimed at bolstering the AI talent pool throughout the federal government. According to a new Government Accountability Office report, those benchmarks have been cleared.

The congressional watchdog said Monday that 13 AI management and talent requirements in Biden’s order were fully implemented by the March 2024 deadline, checking off boxes that the GAO said would effectively lay the groundwork for governmentwide AI efforts.

The audit, which GAO conducted from January to September, zeroed in on six agencies charged with implementing measures ranging from issuing guidance to standing up AI working groups.

The Office of Personnel Management faced the heaviest workload, with four tasks to complete by March: review hiring and workplace flexibilities, consider excepted service appointments, coordinate AI hiring across agencies, and issue guidance on AI-related pay.

OPM completed the hiring and service tasks within the 60-day window of the order’s issuance, revealing in a memo that federal agencies could use direct hire authority and temporary excepted appointments to support AI talent acquisition. The agency also coordinated a pooled-hiring approach across agencies for AI recruiting, and in February released guidance on pay and benefits incentives aimed at attracting AI talent.

The Office of Management and Budget, meanwhile, was told to convene the interagency Chief AI Officer Council, provide AI guidance to agencies, and issue instructions on agencies’ AI use cases. The council was gathered in December, per the GAO, and a March memo from OMB included AI guidance for agencies and updated instructions on the publication of use cases.

OMB also teamed with the Office of Science and Technology Policy to “identify priority mission areas for increasing AI talent, establish highest-priority types of talent, and identify pathways for an accelerated hiring process,” according to the GAO. That goal has been fully implemented, the watchdog said, as OMB and OSTP have coordinated efforts on hiring with a particular focus on leveraging AI in government, building regulatory capacity and strengthening the research and development ecosystem with the technology.

Relatedly, OPM, the U.S. Digital Service, the U.S. Digital Corps and the Presidential Innovation Fellows successfully “developed and implemented initial plans to support the rapid recruitment of AI talent in the government,” the GAO said. OMB reported more than 150 hires into AI positions since the executive order’s release, with another 94 expected by the end of the summer. 

At the General Services Administration, the Technology Modernization Fund Board was asked to consider prioritizing AI projects, and a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program framework was requested. The FedRAMP framework, which prioritizes generative AI systems including chat interfaces, code-generation and debugging tools, and prompt-based image generators, was released in June. And the TMF board, according to the watchdog, “has called for agencies to identify AI projects for possible investment and offered multiple paths to funding.”

Finally, the Executive Office of the President established the White House AI Council “to coordinate agencies’ activities across the federal government,” the GAO wrote, and in November the office assembled the AI and Technology Talent Task Force, which is working “to expedite and track the hiring of AI talent.”