USAi is no longer free for federal agencies, website update says

Federal agencies will now have to pay to use the government’s artificial intelligence platform USAi, according to an update posted to the General Services Administration’s website this week.

Previously provided at no cost to government employees, USAi now costs a “platform fee plus passthrough usage costs,” the website says. 

Though originally free to reduce barriers to entry, a cost-recoverable model has long been the plan, as a GSA official familiar with the change said the new pricing allows the agency to meet the demand without relying on appropriations. 

The official said while costs vary by model, the platform fee is based on an agency’s expected workload, approximated by agency size, and usage costs are based on what they actually use. 

Other GSA AI offerings through OneGov deals — like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude — are expiring at the end of this month, with no clear plan forward yet, at least publicly. 

Recently, a GSA official said some manufacturers with OneGov deals, including AI companies, have “already agreed to extend some limited-time offers, and some are looking at producing new offers.”

“We continue to work very closely with the [original equipment manufacturers] to get extension of those offers, or maybe get new offers in place,” Birgit Smeltzer, director of the agency’s Office of IT Products, said at a GovCIO Media & Research event in August. 

“We look very much at what makes sense for the government and what may not have taken flight so much,” she continued, “and put some offers out there that work for our agencies.”

This story was updated Sept. 4, 2026, with information from a GSA official familiar with the change.