This Week in Government Tech Media – August 1, 2025

By Brad Bass /

Why should this week be any different? As we’ve seen over the past several months, AI continues to grab more headlines than any other topic in the government media space. This week, the headlines picked up from last week’s announcement of the White House AI action plan. Our roundup of trending news follows:

Federal AI Growth

The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the federal government continues to grow remarkably, a government watchdog agency reported this week. And as always, the federal government tech media covered new examples of where agencies are applying AI in attempts to improve efficiency:

  • A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the government’s growing use of generative AI drew a lot of attention this week. Miranda Nazzaro reported in FedScoop that the agency examined 11 agencies, finding 250 additional generative AI use cases from 2023 to 2024. The uptick represented a ninefold increase year-over-year, according to an article by Alexandra Kelley in Nextgov/FCW. Miles Jamison noted in ExecutiveGov that GAO reported that AI has the potential to help agencies enhance written communications and more efficiently tracking program status.
  • In an indication that the trend will continue, the General Services Administration (GSA) plans to test Grok 3, the AI tool built by Elon Musk’s company xAI, according to a FedScoop piece by Rebecca Heilweil and Madison Alder. And Grace Dille wrote in MeriTalk that the agency wants to expand the scope of GSAi, its internal generative AI tool, to support other agencies facing similar generative AI challenges.
  • At the Pentagon, the Defense Department issued a policy to its public affairs offices on how to use generative AI capabilities to develop information for release to the public, as reported by Jane Edwards in ExecutiveGov. And late this week, Nick Wakeman broke the news in Washington Technology that the Army struck a $10 billion deal that consolidates 75 existing contracts into one to drive more AI-powered data analysis capabilities. In other Army AI news, Evan Lynch of SIGNAL Media provided an update on the service’s Enterprise Large Language Model Workspace initiative and its progress in growing the number of use cases that the platform can support.

AI Policy and Oversight

Federal AI policy and oversight leaders in the White House and Congress are doing their best to support and promote the fast-growing adoption of AI across government. The government tech media covered new developments in these areas this week as well as some of the repercussions of new AI policies:

  • Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios this week publicly promoted the recent White House AI action plan. Nextgov/FCW’s Kelley quoted Kratsios’s statement that “all the government data that the government has is going to be ingested into models to provide citizen services.” Covering those comments for MeriTalk, Dille reported that Kratsios asked Congress to mandate uniform AI regulations across the U.S. – something lawmakers have voted down in the past. Dille’s colleague Weslan Hansen covered a separate speech by Kratsios in which he called for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to focus more on its traditional standardization mission and less on AI safety. Justin Doubleday of Federal News Network also wrote about the speech, noting Kratsios’ priority to “make sure that the world is running on the American AI stack.” Reporting for GovCIO Media, Jordan McDonald noted Kratsios’ view that the U.S. will need to export AI to partners and allies while limiting influence and access to adversaries like China. 
  • Digging deeper into how new White House policies will affect state and local governments, an article by John Curran for MeriTalk focused on how last week’s AI action plan threatens federal funding to states that diverge from federal policies covering AI. Nikki Davidson at Government Technology analyzed more than 400 state laws to reveal which states would be at risk of losing funding.
  • There were also some AI-related actions on the part of Congress reported this week. Matt Bracken reported in FedScoop that a bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced a bill to spur AI experimentation at financial regulatory agencies. In her take for MeriTalk, Hansen wrote that the bill would create a “sandbox” for public-private collaboration on testing financial sector AI.

To Your Health

We took a look at some of the news reported this week on federal digital health initiatives, including (of course) a new AI application:

  • The White House announced this week that more than 60 leading healthcare and technology companies signed on for an initiative designed to make personal medical data more accessible to U.S. consumers via digital devices, according to coverage by Edward Graham at Nextgov/FCW. Marianne Kolbasuk McGee noted in GovInfoSecurity that the initiative is part of the administration’s “Make Health Technology Great Again” plan to improve patient data interoperability, exchange and accessibility throughout the healthcare ecosystem, although some observers raised concerns about patient privacy.
  • Hansen reported in MeriTalk that the initiative would let Americans share medical records across privately-owned apps while consolidating federal health data into a single database.
  • And of course, there was AI-related news in the health sector. The National Institutes of Health announced a new AI agent called GeneAgent to help researchers sift through complex molecular data, according to a piece by Kelley in Nextgov/FCW. Hansen at MeriTalk noted that NIH says the tool is highly accurate and does not carry the risk of hallucinations.

Events Next Week

Here’s our latest list of events we think might be worth your attention in the coming week. Below, you’ll see links to each event along with information about the sponsoring organization and venue:

I hope you’re finding these updates helpful. If so, please share with a friend. Subscribe to this newsletter on LinkedIn or via the form below. I’ll be back next week with more of the trending news in the government tech media!

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