Federal government discloses more than 1,700 AI use cases

The new total more than doubles the figure from last year. Of those use cases, 227 were labeled rights- or safety-impacting.

By Madison Alder

December 18, 2024

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U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris hold an event to highlight their administration's approach to artificial intelligence in the East Room of the White House on October 30, 2023 in Washington, DC. President Biden issued a new executive order on Monday, directing his administration to create a new chief AI officer, track companies developing the most powerful AI systems, adopt stronger privacy policies and "both deploy AI and guard against its possible bias," creating new safety guidelines and industry standards. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A consolidated list of federal artificial intelligence use cases released by the White House on Wednesday shows agencies more than doubled the amount of uses reported last year.

Per the 2024 consolidated inventory, which is available on the Office of Management and Budget’s GitHub, 37 federal agencies have reported 1,757 public AI uses. A consolidated list released by the White House last year documented 710 use cases.

The consolidated inventory is the product of an annual AI inventory process that was initially established in December 2020 and has continued to evolve. It gives the latest snapshot of how the federal government is handling the rapidly growing technology and reflects the Biden administration’s safety-based approach to AI.

Over the years, the inventories have been inconsistent, but the Biden administration sought to enhance and expand the process for 2024 by adding new information and refining existing processes. This year’s inventories, for example, require disclosure of rights- and safety-impacting use cases, which require additional risk management practices under an OMB memo on AI. Uses that didn’t meet those requirements had to be halted by Dec. 1.

The consolidated list reports 227 rights- and safety-impacting uses. Of that number, 145 uses are at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Disclosures by agencies were due Monday, with many agencies reporting more uses than last year. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, reported a 66% increase in disclosed uses. HHS, per the consolidated list, also reported the most use cases of any federal agency with 271.

Notably, while many use cases are in operation and maintenance phases — meaning they’re actually being used right now — the inventories reflect use cases at various stages along the development lifecycle, including uses that are in acquisition and development, in the process of being initiated or even uses that have been retired.

The inventories also reflect only publicly disclosed use cases. Some use cases, such as classified uses and those within the Department of Defense, do not have to be reported individually in a public inventory. However, the Biden administration added a requirement this year that agencies must publicly aggregate metrics about those uses. It isn’t clear when those metrics will be published.