GSA leader sees AI as catalyst for federal acquisition overhaul
The head of the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) is optimistic about the Trump administration’s push to overhaul the Federal Acquisition Regulation, suggesting artificial intelligence and other agentic tools could be game changers for the effort.
Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the GSA’s FAS, provided an update on the agency’s so-called “Revolutionary FAR Overhaul” at the Leidos Supplier Innovation and Technology Symposium on Thursday, stating administration workers are “taking it seriously.”
The efforts follow President Donald Trump’s executive order in April, which calls for changes to the FAR and an evaluation of the agency buying processes. The FAR is the more than 2,000-page document detailing the regulations and rules for federal agency procurement.
In a fireside chat with Gruenbaum, Leidos CEO Thomas Bell noted that many administrations have attempted to fix or restructure the FAR. “We’ve heard it before” when it comes to FAR reform, Bell remarked, but “this time, it feels a little different.”
Gruenbaum echoed that outlook, pointing in part to the emerging technologies the federal government increasingly uses.
“I feel really good about it because technology is different today,” Gruenbaum said. “The agentic tools and artificial intelligence.”
The use cases for these tools, Gruenbaum said, could ease the “really tough, laborious, monotonous” human processes, while noting subject matter experts still need to be involved in the reform.
“But to be able to lower and go faster through agented tooling with the lens that this administration is encouraging, I do think this time is different and I do think it’s going really well,” he added.
Gruenbaum continued: “This initiative could not be going at the pace and success that it is without the folks over at [the Office of Budget and Management], [the Office of Federal Procurement Policy], our colleagues over at NASA” and the Department of Defense.
His comments come as GSA and other federal agencies increasingly turn to generative AI tools, including internal chatbots like GSAi, to make certain workflows more efficient.
The overhaul process, Gruenbaum said, is also being boosted by agency collaboration and the Trump administration’s “business-focused approach.”
“If we want to be great, forget just the balance sheet,” he said. “Forget the budget each year, but just thinking about our positioning as we talk about … [the AI] race, if we can’t bring in the best companies that this country has to offer, because we have so much red tape or so many obstacles for a smaller, cutting edge, smaller business to be able to come in and offer the federal government services without having to go and spending whatever amount of money … then that’s a failing effort.
“So what we’ve been endeavoring to do is to really lower that barrier. And because of the folks who are around this and the business common sense lens that we are all being encouraged — at the very top from the White House — to deploy,” he added.
The White House’s April executive order took aim at this “red tape” goal and argued the FAR has evolved “into an excessive and overcomplicated regulatory framework and resulting in an onerous bureaucracy.”
That EO calls for the removal of “undue barriers” and “unnecessary regulations” in procurement and requests the head of the OFPP, members of the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, and senior agency acquisition and procurement officials to coordinate on aligning the FAR with the order’s instructions within 180 days.
The GSA launched a new website in May to provide details on the progress of the FAR updates. The website will be home to the streamlined version of the FAR, buying guides, and give federal acquisition stakeholders a chance to share feedback.
