Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a constant theme running through many of these weekly posts, even before the change in administrations and the deluge of executive orders and regulations focused on the technology. That continued this week, when news related to AI broke at all levels of government. In a somewhat new wrinkle, there was also a variety of coverage related to government healthcare tech. Find the details and links below:
AI Marches On
As it often does, AI grabbed the attention of reporters across the government tech media outlets. Headlines focused on the continuing advance of government initiatives to exploit AI’s capabilities as well as AI-related oversight from Capitol Hill:
- It appears the government market for AI will continue to thrive. Deltek’s annual assessment of the government contracting landscape found that contractors rated AI as highest when asked to list the top three technologies they are prioritizing for investment, according to coverage by Nick Wakeman for Washington Technology.
- The General Services Administration has been positioning itself as the driver of governmentwide AI use. Ross Gianfortune of GovCIO Media reported that the agency’s Chief Data Scientist and Chief AI Officer Zach Whitman said at an event this week that GSA sees itself as an enabler for other federal agencies’ AI use in compliance with new presidential directives. Reporting from the same event, Grace Dille of MeriTalk wrote that Whitman wants to expand the use of GSA’s internal generative AI tool, GSAi, to other agencies.
- Several publications covered proposed legislation in the House that would bar state governments from enforcing new laws or regulations on AI for 10 years. The bill would make it impossible to enforce state AI measures such as California’s law requiring generative AI developers to post documentation of the data used to train their models, according to an article in Government Technology by Chandler Treon. In Nextgov/FCW, Edward Graham noted that the bill could hit snags in the Senate. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) registered concern about the bill’s impact on states’ ability to regulate AI use in absence of federal laws, Keely Quinlan wrote in StateScoop. In Route Fifty, Chris Teale quoted concerns from Democrats that the bill would allow AI companies to ignore consumer privacy protections and allow companies to use AI to deceive consumers.
- On the Senate side, a bipartisan group of lawmakers are proposing legislation that would require the Commerce Department to provide Americans with information about the benefits of AI in their daily lives, as well as the risks the technology presents, according to a report in FedScoop by Matt Bracken.
- In examples of new applications for AI in government, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency helped develop an AI tool that can analyze and scan publicly available corporate documents for potential indicators of foreign influence, as reported by Kristen Smith in ExecutiveGov. Smith also wrote about a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency program that would use AI-enabled image and video processing to improve security threat prediction capabilities.
- Meanwhile, the bad guys are continuing to use AI to target the government. Derek B. Johnson of CyberScoop reported that the FBI warned that malicious actors have been impersonating senior U.S. government officials and using AI-generated audio to trick other government officials into giving up access to their personal accounts.
A Healthy Dose of Technology
We noted that several articles this week focused on government technology initiatives related to healthcare at the federal and state levels:
- Dille reported in MeriTalk on comments this week from Department of Health and Human Services leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr., promising aggressive use of AI within the department “to manage health data more efficiently and securely.”
- Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins told Congress this week that the VA will deploy its new electronic health record system at 13 VA medical facilities in 2026 with plans to quickly accelerate site rollouts in the future, Graham reported in Nextgov/FCW.
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is seeking input on how digital healthcare technology could improve care for those receiving Medicare benefits, asking for information on ways to improve data interoperability, health technology infrastructure and related policy, as noted in an article by Weslan Hansen in MeriTalk.
- State governments are looking at ways to apply technology to improve the well-being of various segments of the population. Several states are providing technology resources to support citizens with autism, according to a report by Julia Edinger in Government Technology. Kaitlyn Levinson reported in Route Fifty on a New York state program to counter the isolation of older residents with devices that turn televisions into communications hubs for social interaction.
- StateScoop published a report by Tomas Apodaca and Colin Lecher revealing that the website Californians use to shop for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act had been sending sensitive personal data on citizens to LinkedIn.
Just a note in closing that we will not be publishing our weekly newsletter next week due to the Memorial Day holiday. We’ll be back in two weeks with our next edition of “This Week in Government Tech Media.”
In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the “Gov & Beyond” podcast to hear more from government tech media leaders, and subscribe to this newsletter on LinkedIn or via the form below.
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