FTC on track to publish its first AI use case inventory by the end of this year, official says

The Federal Trade Commission expects to make its first artificial intelligence use case inventory public before 2025, according to Mark Gray, the agency’s chief information, AI and data officer. 

In an interview with FedScoop, Gray said the agency’s AI use case inventory is “not quite ready to become public yet,” but pointed to the FTC’s compliance plan as the document that “lays out where we’re starting.”

As an independent agency, the FTC was exempted from two previous AI-related executive orders and not required to post its use case inventory until it was called for in the Office of Management and Budget’s March memorandum on the technology, Gray said. 

Gray said the FTC plans to establish internal governance for AI while ensuring that there’s “a good handle on where AI is being used right now within the agency” and that the technology is used responsibly.

While Gray said he often jokes about “small agencies, small budgets and wearing multiple hats,” the CIO, CAIO and CDO said that “functionally, it makes sense” to take on all three roles, pointing to the overlap in duties.

Additionally, Gray said the FTC is moving to apply its existing data governance structure to AI governance. 

Gray said it “made a lot of sense” to apply the FTC’s Open Government Plan, which aligns with the OPEN Government Data Act, to AI governance within the agency. The agency’s AI compliance plan, he added, states that the FTC is going to rename its existing data governance board as the “Data and AI Governance Board.”

“We’re splitting time in our data governance boards meeting between the data governance side and the AI governance side,” Gray said. ”Although recently we spent more time on AI guidelines because it’s so new and requires a little more attention and energy to adaptive policies and procedure.”

Outside of the compliance plan, Gray declined to comment on what the AI use case inventory will contain. 

The plan states that the FTC is currently using an established annual system inventory process that polls system owners for AI use cases within existing or new systems, which is tied to the agency’s Federal Information System Modernization Act (FISMA) audit. 

The FTC is also using its new software request process to gather “relevant information” to build its use case inventory. The agency “does not currently use AI tools that impact user safety or rights,” according to the compliance plan. 

The compliance plan states that the agency will allow internal use of generative AI tools that “meet agency privacy and security standards that protect agency data from unauthorized disclosure.”