HHS announces 10,000 additional job cuts, restructuring aligned with DOGE 

The Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to cut an additional 10,000 full-time workers and consolidate its divisions as part of President Donald Trump’s DOGE efforts.

In a statement Thursday, the department said it would also “streamline” department functions by reducing the number of divisions from 28 to 15 — which includes the addition of a new Administration for a Healthy America — and slashing the number of regional offices in half, from 10 to five. HHS cited “redundant units” as its motive for cutting the divisions.

The new jobs cuts add to existing departures from early retirements to those that accepted a deferred resignation offer known as “Fork in the Road.” When taken together, they bring the total size of the department from 82,000 full-time workers down to 62,000, according to the agency. 

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.” 

The announcement comes as the Trump administration has launched rapid downsizing and restructuring of the federal workforce via its Department of Government Efficiency group. In an executive order last month, which HHS pointed to as the reason for the restructuring, Trump called for reducing “bloat” and “insularity” in the government and ordered agencies to prepare for large-scale reductions in force. 

Simultaneously, the administration also ordered thousands of probationary workers to be fired, though those terminations have been reversed, for now, by rulings from two federal judges. That includes HHS. According to filings in federal court, the department told 3,248 of its employees that they were going to be fired, but reinstated those workers or extended their administrative leave following a U.S. district court ruling in Maryland.

According to the Thursday statement from HHS on the restructure, its new Administration for a Healthy America will centralize several “core functions,” including IT, policy, procurement and human resources. But it wasn’t immediately clear where that leaves a couple of key technology components. 

The release did not mention the Assistant Secretary for Administration (AHA), which the Office of the Chief Information Officer is nested under. It also didn’t mention the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ASTP/ONC), which was restructured during the Biden administration to include the department’s chief technology, artificial intelligence, and data roles.

The release, however, specifically noted that the AHA will absorb divisions such as Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

HHS didn’t immediately respond to FedScoop’s request for comment on what the changes meant for the ASTP/ONC.

In response to the announcement Thursday, National Treasury Employees Union President Doreen Greenwald called the plan “disastrous” and said that if the 10,000 cuts move forward “the impact to public health services across the country will be devastating.”

Greenwald also disclosed that the agency has notified NTEU, which represents HHS workers across multiple components, that the reduction in force is expected to take effect May 27.

“HHS workers have dedicated their careers to serving the American people, and sending any of them to the unemployment lines is nothing short of an intentional effort to weaken government and destroy the world’s finest public health system,” Greenwald said.

Agency software purchasing bill reintroduced by House Oversight members

A bipartisan group of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members reintroduced a bill Thursday that aims to overhaul federal software purchasing for better efficiency and reduced costs. 

The Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets (SAMOSA) Act would make agencies conduct “comprehensive” software inventories and undergo independent assessments of management practices and contracts.

The legislation, which is backed by several leading software trade groups, would also require agency chief information officers to create a plan to adopt enterprise licensing agreements in order to improve costs and negotiating power against vendors. Additionally, the Office of Management and Budget would have to publish a governmentwide strategy for software modernization based on audits and plans. 

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who introduced the bill with Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., April McClain Delaney, D-Md., and Pat Fallon, R-Texas, said in a statement that the government spends money on software that “it doesn’t need, doesn’t use or already has.”

“The SAMOSA Act is a smart, bipartisan step to bring transparency, accountability and common sense to federal IT spending,” added Mace, who chairs House Oversight’s Cybersecurity, IT and Government Innovation subcommittee. “Taxpayers deserve better than duplicative licenses and bloated contracts — they deserve a government that actually knows what it’s buying.”

The House previously passed the SAMOSA Act last December, but the bill didn’t make it through the Senate before the last congressional term expired.

David Weinberg, staff director for Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Democrats, said during an Elastic event in Washington, D.C., last week that the SAMOSA Act was one of the committee’s top tech policy priorities this Congress. 

“All roads on the committee now run through Chairman [Rand] Paul,” Weinberg told FedScoop. “So we’re in the early stages of those conversations with them, and I’m sure they’ll want to see what the new administration has to say as well. We are trying to do some of the lowest-hanging fruit from last Congress first. I’m hoping this stuff will be [in] the next tranche.”

Groups including the Alliance for Digital innovation, NetChoice, Coalition for Fair Software Licensing and others reiterated their support for SAMOSA in a letter sent Thursday to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

The trade organizations pointed to DOGE  claims that agencies often have more software licenses than people, “with many idle licenses, meaning they have been paid for but not used.”

“As the world’s largest software customer, there is no reason why restrictive software licensing terms and limited integration capabilities should inhibit the ability for the U.S. government to access best in breed and preferred technologies,” the letter states. 

It continued: “The resulting inefficiencies and waste limits digital innovation and the ability of government agencies and departments to choose the technology products and services that make the most sense for individual agencies and for taxpayers.” 

Connolly, ranking member of the cybersecurity and IT subcommittee, said in a statement that SAMOSA is a “critical step” toward making sure that agencies manage software assets with the “same rigor and accountability we expect in the private sector.”

“By improving transparency, reducing duplication and leveraging enterprise licensing,” he said, “we can save taxpayer dollars and modernize our IT infrastructure in a smart, strategic way.”

The reintroduction of the bill comes as Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia this week sent guidance to federal CIOs asking them to begin inventorying licences with the federal government’s top-5 software contractors.

Matt Bracken contributed to this article.

Social Security Administration swaps out one DOGE staffer at CIO for another

The Social Security Administration has tapped a DOGE associate named Scott Coulter as its new chief information officer, replacing another member of the Elon Musk-led group who spent a little more than a month in the role.

Coulter, a Harvard graduate with a background in investment management, was added to SSA’s org chart this week as CIO. Mike Russo, who started as the agency’s top IT official Feb. 3, according to an SSA spokesperson, is now listed as senior advisor to the commissioner.

The agency spokesperson told FedScoop last month that Russo would be “coordinating on technology initiatives that can improve the service we provide including on our national 800 number.” Russo was previously an executive at Shift4, a payments processing company with links to Musk’s SpaceX.

Russo’s name came up earlier this week during a Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing for Frank Bisignano, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Social Security commissioner. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., shared a whistleblower letter claiming that Bisignano was “frequently” in contact with SSA leadership despite having not been confirmed.

According to the letter, Bisignano on Jan. 30 “personally appointed Michael Russo, who he knew from his industry.” Bisignano said during Tuesday’s hearing that he has “never talked” to acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek but has spoken with Russo. 

“I know Mike Russo,” he said. “He was the CIO of Shift4, and he was the CIO at Oracle for [former CEO] Mark Hurd, and I [have known] him for 20 years. I don’t know him as a DOGE person. I know him as a CIO.”

Russo and Coulter were named in a federal court filing in Maryland earlier this month by Tiffany Flick, an SSA employee for nearly 30 years who retired last month. Flick, who had been serving as acting chief of staff to acting SSA Commissioner Michelle King, was informed by Dudek on Jan. 30 that two DOGE representatives — Russo and Coulter — would be working at the agency.

Dudek, then a mid-level staffer, was directed by Flick to refrain from contact with DOGE, and the onboarding of Russo began. In the subsequent weeks, Flick said Russo “seemed completely focused on questions from DOGE officials based on the general myth of supposed widespread Social Security fraud, rather than facts.”

“Throughout this time, Acting Commissioner King requested that Mr Russo report to her, as the CIO normally would, but he consistently gave evasive answers about his work,” Flick wrote. “It appeared to me that he was actually reporting to DOGE.”

DOGE representatives’ accessing of SSA systems has been the subject of litigation. A federal judge last week issued a temporary restraining order blocking Musk’s group from further access to any agency systems that contain personally identifiable information.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Coulter holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in applied mathematics and previously worked as a private equity analyst at The Blackstone Group. He founded the New York-based investment management firm Cowbird Capital in 2017, per his profile.

Nextgov first reported the news of Coulter’s appointment to the CIO position.

Federal CIO calls for agencies to inventory licenses with ‘top 5 software vendors’

Newly installed Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia has called for agency CIOs to inventory licenses with the five software vendors that earn the most from federal contracts by April 2 as part of a larger software accounting initiative.

Barbaccia sent an email, obtained by FedScoop, to all federal CIOs on Monday requesting that agencies “complete a software license inventory to account for the full universe of software licenses at your agency.”

“Federal agencies are currently neglecting cost savings, making duplicative purchases, and failing to take advantage of economies of scale for software purchases. The first step to resolving this issue is to identify a comprehensive inventory to understand the entire catalog of vendors at each agency,” his email said.

To start, Barbaccia called for CIOs to identify licenses with the five software vendors who do the most business with the federal government: Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce, Oracle and ServiceNow, per a 2024 report from the Government Accountability Office.

As that report explains, in fiscal 2021 across the largest 24 federal agencies, “10 vendors accounted for the majority of the most widely used licenses,” with Microsoft alone accounting for more than 31%.

“But it’s unclear which products under those licenses are most widely used because of agencies’ inconsistent and incomplete data,” the report states. “For example, multiple software products may be bundled into a single license with a vendor, and agencies may not have usage data for each product individually.”

The others on that list at the time were IBM, VMware, Cisco and McAfee, with ESRI and Google tied for tenth. VMware and McAfee have both since been acquired.

Additionally, the federal CIO wants an accounting of any “security logging and monitoring software, including, but not limited to Datadog, Elastic SAAS, Splunk, and Sumo Logic.”

Barbaccia has given CIOs until April 2 to inventory those licenses in a spreadsheet attached to the email he sent Monday.

Then, by April 30, he has called for a “full inventory of all software licenses and associated contracts.”

“We have the opportunity under this administration to reduce federal spending on IT by working smarter across the enterprise. I want to us [sic] transform how we approach software licensing in the federal government so we stop wasteful spending and still accomplish our mission for the taxpayer,” he said.

Barbaccia wrote in the email that he’s working in partnership with acting General Services Administration chief Stephen Ehikian and Kevin Rhodes, a newly hired senior advisor for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, as part of the Trump administration’s “initiative to transform Federal spending on contracts.”

He adds that GSA “has piloted a process to collect the necessary data” and is “available to work with agencies that need help to collect their inventories.”

The email comes after President Donald Trump last week issued an executive order to consolidate all federal IT procurement — and most federal contracting in general — under GSA.

Barbaccia’s email calling for the inventorying of licenses with the top-five software vendors also follows a memo from GSA’s Ehikian last month pushing for federal agencies to terminate contracts with the top-10 highest-paid consulting firms.

Efforts to better wrangle federal software licenses aren’t new. Over the last decade, each administration has put its own mark on the greater struggle to reduce spending on commercial software.

Likewise, lawmakers have long tried to tackle the issue with legislation, including as recently as last year with the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets (SAMOSA) Act. However, despite passing the House and touting a potential $5 billion a year in savings, the SAMOSA Act never made it through the Senate before the end of the previous term.

Opening CFPB databases to Elon Musk is ‘deeply anticompetitive’

The accessing of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau databases by Elon Musk’s DOGE associates last month represents an existential threat to private-sector competition, the agency’s former general counsel and a pair of House Democrats warned Wednesday.

On Feb. 7, DOGE aides set up shop at CFPB headquarters and reportedly accessed sensitive financial and personnel information housed in agency systems. Later that day, Musk posted “CFPB RIP” on his X account. 

Seth Frotman, the CFPB’s top legal official during the Biden administration and a senior advisor to former Director Rohit Chopra, told lawmakers on the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions that providing that access to DOGE goes beyond just exposing the personal information of Americans.

“I think [Musk is] not only getting information about consumers, he’s getting information about his competitors,” Frotman said. “Part of the job of the CFPB, as tasked by Congress, is to make sure we understand markets and where there’s risk, and there’s a ton of risk when it comes to nonbank payments.”

Musk has long set his sights on making the social media site formerly known as Twitter into an “everything app.” Launching X Money would put the platform in direct competition with Venmo, CashApp and other nonbank payment services. 

Those platforms, Frotman noted in response to questioning from Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., have never been given the “god-tier” data privileges to the CFPB system that a former agency chief technologist told Recorded Future were granted to Musk’s DOGE team.

“Then let’s assume that he has all that data,” Casten said. “It sounds to me like we have a nonbank that is going to compete the hell out of all of the banks and all the systems that we have right now in a way that is deeply anticompetitive. Please tell me I’m wrong.”

“You are 100% correct,” Frotman replied.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., called Musk’s work with DOGE and his payments ambitions “a major conflict of interest.” He also noted that X Money wouldn’t be overseen by federal banking regulators like witnesses representing credit unions and traditional banks are, nor would it truly be monitored by the CFPB under a Trump administration that has halted much of the agency’s work. 

“Is anybody at the CFPB doing any consumer protection today?” Sherman asked Frotman.

“Well, they’re certainly not overseeing the nonbank payment system in this country, which is the direct ambitions of Elon Musk and most of Silicon Valley,” he answered.

Casten called Musk’s CFPB download “tremendously concerning” for consumers and competition, and ended his allotted time Wednesday by pleading with his Republican subcommittee colleagues to take their oversight responsibilities seriously. 

“We gonna defend capitalism around here? We gonna defend competition?” Casten asked. “Or we gonna put in a ball gag and climb down in the dungeon and just do whatever Trump tells us to do?”

USAID’s information technology team is down to five members

The information technology staff of the now-hobbled U.S. Agency for International Development is down to a skeleton crew capable of providing only limited support, FedScoop has learned. 

The group is what remains of a once-large team as the Trump administration massively scales down American foreign aid and questions emerge about the future of USAID assets and the security of government data.

Only three information technology operations employees, a project manager and a contracting officer are currently working on the agency’s IT staff, according to someone within USAID.  That’s a tiny fraction of the approximately 100 or so staffers devoted to IT before the Trump administration started in January. 

“We are committed to implementing President Trump and Secretary Rubio’s foreign policy objectives by being as innovative, nimble, and focused as possible,” a State Department spokesperson told FedScoop in response to a request for comment. Calls to the USAID number for media listed on the State Department website did not go through. 

Jason Gray, the chief information officer who briefly served as acting administrator of the agency, is now assisting the front office with their plans for USAID, the agency source said. He’s also helping to manage account activation, another USAID source said. 

Employees behind the Information Assurance team, which managed compliance management focused on cybersecurity and privacy, are all on administrative leave, one source said. Contractors have also been removed. 

The future of USAID is still unclear. A federal judge recently found that USAID’s shuttering could be unconstitutional, though the Trump administration is likely to appeal the ruling. According to a memo obtained by Reuters, officials are now interested in turning USAID into the U.S. Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance, which would become part of the State Department and only focus on food security, global health, and disaster response. 

Yet efforts to move technical systems appear to be continuing. To facilitate the transfer of some USAID assets to the State Department, leadership created a small Coordination Support Team with members from both agencies back in February. Jeremy Lewin, a Department of Government Efficiency member and Harvard-trained attorney, has since disbanded the group, several sources confirmed, and according to a late March email viewed by FedScoop. 

The email said that the shuttering of the team would not result in any personnel actions or impact existing permissions and bilateral communications between the two agencies. The email mentioned that the reformed USAID would have a more long-term structure for communications between the two agencies. 

Meanwhile, USAID employees abroad still have access to their devices, some of which carry valuable government data. These employees are on administrative leave and have not received reduction-in-force correspondence or instructions on how to handle their government-furnished equipment, sources told FedScoop. 

According to an employee at USAID, there seemed at one point to be discussions about having USAID employees stationed abroad bring their government devices to U.S. embassies, where State Department employees could process the equipment. The status of that plan is unclear. 

USAID employees based in the U.S. who received reduction-in-force letters were told to return their devices when going into the office to obtain their personal belongings. 

The USAID website is still offline and the URL only displays a post about administrative leave. 

House Oversight passes executive reorganization bill as GOP blocks data privacy amendment

A Republican-backed bill to reorganize the federal government and grant the executive branch more power passed out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, while a Democratic effort to protect sensitive data was blocked.

The Reorganizing Government Act of 2025 (H.R. 1295) from Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. seeks to give the president reorganizational authorities that would include the ability to amend rules, regulations and requirements to decrease cost and eliminate operations that do not serve the public. 

Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, offered an amendment that would have required the president’s reorganization plan to include a list of executive databases that “contain personal and private information of American citizens that DOGE has accessed” and prohibit employees of the Elon Musk-led group and its partners from accessing this information. The amendment was struck down in a vote.

“I think we should all agree, no president, no bureaucrat and no unelected billionaire should have free rein over our American citizens’ private information,” Brown said during the markup. “Let’s protect the American people, not strip them of their rights and safeguards.”

Brown said it remains unclear the degree to which DOGE members accessed the private information of Americans.

“And when we attempted to subpoena Mr. Musk and clarify the work that they’ve been doing in this newly created department, we were rejected by our Republican colleagues,” she added. 

Ranking member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., gave Brown’s amendment his endorsement and said that “privacy is a key value in America. We don’t want people accessing our private data and using it for whatever purpose they may decide to use it for.”

Comer called Brown’s amendment “another attempt by committee Democrats to misconstrue what this bill does and use this markup to rant about the Trump administration’s work to eliminate Washington waste and reform the unchecked federal bureaucracy.”

Comer defended the bill, saying the legislation was simply an allowance of the current administration to reorganize the federal government, in a similar way to former President Barack Obama, who requested that Congress renew and revise the same reorganization authority during his presidency.

“This authority is not, and let me repeat, is not some new, abusive or unprecedented power as the Democrats would like us all to believe,” Comer said. “A reorganization plan will only go into effect if Congress approves it, thus preserving our role in rightsizing the federal government.”

Trump order pushes federal government toward electronic payment methods

The federal government will shift from paper-based payments to electronic methods, part of what the White House said in a Tuesday executive order is an attempt to cut costs and reduce fraud.

President Donald Trump’s EO on “modernizing payments to and from America’s bank account” requires the Treasury Department to phase out paper check disbursements and receipts by Sept. 30. That includes intragovernmental payments, benefits payments, vendor payments and tax refunds. Federal agencies will be expected to transition to electronic funds transfer (EFT) methods, including direct deposit, prepaid card accounts and other digital options. 

“The continued use of paper-based payments by the Federal Government, including checks and money orders, flowing into and out of the United States General Fund, which might be thought of as America’s bank account, imposes unnecessary costs; delays; and risks of fraud, lost payments, theft, and inefficiencies,” the order states.  

All payments made to the federal government should be processed electronically “as soon as practicable,” per the order. Exceptions can be made for individuals who do not have access to banking services or electronic systems, in emergency situations “where electronic disbursement would cause undue hardship,” in cases with national security or law enforcement implications, and in other circumstances as determined by the Treasury secretary.

The secretaries of State, Treasury, Health and Human Services, Education, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security are tasked with taking “appropriate action to eliminate the need for the Department of the Treasury’s physical lockbox services and expedite requirements to receive the payment of Federal receipts, including fees, fines, loans, and taxes, through electronic means,” the EO reads.

The Treasury secretary, meanwhile, is charged with supporting agencies’ transition to digital payment methods, including by providing access to its centralized payment systems for direct deposits, debit and credit card payments, digital wallets, real-time payment systems and other modern electronic options.

The top Treasury official is also tasked with leading other agency heads in the coordination of a public awareness campaign, which should inform federal payment recipients of the change and how to set up electronic payment options.

A separate executive order issued Tuesday paves the way for the country’s transition to digital payments, updating Office of Management and Budget guidance and bolstering verification policies for Treasury payments systems. 

Tuesday’s orders are the latest in a Trump push to digitize government payments. An EO released in February called for the creation of DOGE-linked agency payment-tracking systems. That order would pair agency heads with team leads from the Elon Musk-led group to build internal IT systems to track contracts, grants and other expenditures.

Senate confirms Michael Kratsios to lead White House science, technology office 

The Senate confirmed Michael Kratsios on Tuesday to serve as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology in a bipartisan 74-25 vote.

Kratsios, who will serve as both OSTP director and assistant to the president for science and technology, previously served as the managing director of Scale AI and as chief technology officer during the first Trump administration. 

At his February confirmation hearing, Kratsios faced questions from Democrats on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about the mass firings of federal workers, but his nomination was ultimately advanced with bipartisan support in a 24-4 vote.

President Donald Trump first announced plans to nominate Kratsios to lead OSTP in December along with several other science- and technology-related selections. Trump said those officials would “be working in conjunction with” AI and crypto czar David Sacks.

Kratsios will take the lead at OSTP while the office is involved in the development of the administration’s AI policy. 

In February, OSTP solicited public input for Trump’s AI action plan, which the administration says will outline policy and actions needed for AI innovation. That plan would likely be the replacement for Joe Biden’s now-repealed executive order on the technology and is expected to be sent to the president this summer.

Social Security nominee vows to protect personal information amid DOGE data dives

As judges across the country litigate whether DOGE staffers have compromised Americans’ personally identifiable information during their forays into government systems, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Social Security Administration said Tuesday that protecting that data would be “job one” if he’s confirmed. 

Frank Bisignano, a Wall Street veteran and CEO of the payments and fintech company Fiserv, faced sustained questioning during his confirmation hearing from Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee about the Elon Musk-led group’s meddling in SSA systems. 

A federal judge last week temporarily blocked DOGE access to those systems, but senators peppered Bisignano with questions about whether he’d make the protection of individuals’ PII a priority.

“In this job, it’s job one,” he said. PII “needs the highest level of scrutiny and protection, and we need to understand who can access what information and ensure that that information is anonymized, so they’re not getting data they could use in a bad way.”

Though Bisignano referred to himself in a February interview with CNBC as “fundamentally a DOGE person,” he asserted to Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., on Tuesday that he hasn’t “talked to anybody in DOGE about” the accessing of Americans’ PII outside of SSA protocols. 

Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a whistleblower complaint that alleged that Bisignano intervened to get key DOGE officials installed at SSA, but Trump’s nominee testified that he was “not involved in onboarding anybody in the middle of the night.” Bisignano also said he’s never spoken with acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek and suggested that current problems at the agency detailed in a Washington Post story were more of a “leadership issue” than a DOGE issue.

When pressed by Wyden about whether he’d lock DOGE representatives out of Social Security databases, Bisignano declined to give a yes or no answer but said he would “do whatever is required to protect the information that is private information.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse expressed concerns about damage that may already be done due to “the Musk infiltration of Social Security databases.” When asked by the Rhode Island Democrat what he’d do to make sure those databases weren’t damaged and there were no backdoors left open for threat actors to enter, Bisignano promised “a total review.”

Musk has repeatedly claimed that burrowing into SSA systems is necessary to root out fraud, though DOGE has reportedly found very little of it. Bisignano, who has held several executive positions at global financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, told Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that there is no “need to expose any PII to minimize fraud.”

If confirmed, Bisignano said he’d look at SSA’s anti-fraud unit to “understand how well we’re doing there” and to ensure they “have the right tools to do their job.” Artificial intelligence, he said, will certainly be a part of that.

“Many times you keep what [tools] you have, but you peel away parts of it,” he told Blackburn. “Technically, you build a middle layer, and then you put in modern technology in front of it. … I think we have a strategic advantage with AI. I think we can make all of the work simpler, easier within the department. I think we could drive the accuracy level [by] multiple decimals.”

Though the agency has used AI for decades and reported nearly two dozen use cases last year, SSA’s workforce cuts have led some to believe that the technology will be used to replace customer service-facing functions. Bisignano said AI would likely be used in many forms, noting that the technology “doesn’t only have to be client facing.”

“One of the greatest efficiency opportunities we have is using artificial intelligence,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we use it for answering the phone. It means we use it to learn how to do our work better.”