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This Week in Government Tech Media – October 26, 2026

By Brad Bass /

As is often the case, stories on new developments related to government use of AI dominated the past week’s headlines. The majority of those articles focused on implementing AI guardrails, but we also saw multiple articles on federal government AI contracts. Learn more in our roundup of some of those articles below:

A Broad Push for AI Safety

Judging from the number of articles covering recent moves to impose new AI guardrails across government, it appears that government leaders are acting on widespread concerns about the possible negative consequences of AI. Read about actions related to AI safety taken at all levels of government in the roundup below:

  • Tiffany Wang reported in GovInfoSecurity that the National Security Agency, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last week published a step-by-step guide to help the frontier AI industry prevent, prepare for and respond to incidents where AI agents go rogue.
  • In related coverage, Gail Emery wrote in MeriTalk about bipartisan legislation introduced last week that would direct NIST to develop voluntary standards for protecting AI models from foreign exploitation and using AI to strengthen cybersecurity defenses for critical infrastructure. 
  • In his article on the bill in CyberScoop, Derek B. Johnson noted that it calls on NIST to develop voluntary industry standards and best practices for preventing distillation attacks from foreign entities from four countries: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. 
  • In a roundup of last week’s tech legislation, Edward Graham of Nextgov/FCW noted a bill that seeks to promote transparency around the use of AI-generated content in political ads and curtail uses of AI to affect Americans’ voting rights. 
  • Lisbeth Perez of MeriTalk reported that a new White House AI task force is considering mandatory incident reporting requirements for AI companies as it develops recommendations to hold developers accountable when their technology causes harm.
  • Another piece by Emery in MeriTalk noted that new requirements from the General Services Administration (GSA) will address data handling, supplier due diligence, foreign government influence, human oversight, and incident reporting in covered large language model contracts.
  • Lindsey Wilkinson noted in FedScoop that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quietly released an updated AI policy earlier this month that retained a prohibition with minimal changes barring the use of AI for improper “systemic or large-scale monitoring, surveillance, or tracking of individuals, or predictions of emotional state or future behavior” – but also reserved the right for the department to waive any of the policy’s requirements.
  • Moving to the defense sector, the Pentagon issued new guidance last week focused on implementing the Trump administration’s so-called “truth-seeking” and “ideological neutrality” principles in AI procurements, Jon Harper reported in DefenseScoop. 
  • From the state government level, Jule Pattison-Gordon wrote in Governing about the move to deploy guardrails at the state government level, including an executive order by California Gov. Gavin Newsom calling for two state agencies to collaborate with national experts to examine how effective — and technically feasible — certain AI safeguards would be. 
  • Executives from AI company OpenAI wrote to Newsom imploring him to strengthen the state’s AI safety law, recommending new requirements to monitor AI models during development, improve cybersecurity protections and report incidents involving unauthorized access to third-party systems, according to coverage by Sophia Fox-Sowell in StateScoop.

AI Contracting Push and Pull

There was mixed news last week regarding the expansion of federal AI contract vehicles. On one hand, we saw examples of attempts to provide more AI options to agencies. On the other hand, we saw new developments regarding some pushback against those efforts. Here are a few articles illustrating those opposing trends:

  • NextGov/FCW Editor-In-Chief Frank Konkel wrote that the GSA last week inked its first direct-to-government OneGov deal with a small business: North Bethesda, Md.-based company (US)AI. 
  • Also last week, Google Public Sector launched Gemini for Government Services on Oct. 20, introducing a new AI platform designed for federal, state and local agencies, according to a piece by Perez in MeriTalk.
  • Madison Alder reported in FedScoop that the Department of Health and Human Services shared new details about its plans to provide an award to Anthropic without a competition amid questions about its rationale. 
  • In other Anthropic-related news, a bipartisan group of 17 former senior national security officials, diplomats and intelligence professionals filed a brief last week asking for a rehearing of Anthropic’s legal challenge to the Pentagon’s designation of the company as a supply-chain risk – contending the ruling as it stands could threaten all defense contractors, according to an article by Brandi
    Vincent     in DefenseScoop.
  • MeriTalk’s Perez also covered the brief, noting that it said the decision could undermine national security and discourage AI developers from adopting safety safeguards. 
  • In another instance of the government shutting out an AI company, the DHS gave notice last week of an order shutting Chinese AI developer DeepSeek out of civilian agency contracts and directing agencies to pull its products off their systems, Chris Riotta reported in GovInfoSecurity.

Upcoming Industry Events

Late October brings more opportunities to attend industry events where you can hear directly from government tech leaders. No costumes required! Below, find our list of the week’s events:

If you would like your event included in this list, please fill out this form.

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