The US government has its first federal chief AI officer

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. 

“As Federal CIO and Chief AI Officer, I emphasized that our goal isn’t to replace people, it’s to make work more efficient and impactful,” Barbaccia said in a LinkedIn post. “AI can augment human skills, not displace them. It was a great opportunity to highlight how technology can empower our workforce and support smarter public service.”

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.

As CIO, Barbaccia leads the CIO Council, which coalesces chief tech leaders from across the federal government. He also appears to be leading the Chief AI Officers’ Council, which brings together CAIOs from across the federal government to streamline the technology’s adoption. CAIOs are supposed to represent the AI work being done at various federal agencies. 

Information on the status of that body has been limited, but the group seems to have met recently. The AI Action Plan called for “formalizing” the body as “the primary venue for interagency coordination and collaboration on AI adoption,” which could, theoretically, give the role of Federal CAIO a lot of influence. 

A spokesperson for OMB did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.