This Week in Government Tech Media – February 20, 2026

By Brad Bass /

There was so much AI-related news in the government tech media, it was difficult to know where to begin. This week, my roundup features a grab bag of articles on the various ways organizations across government are pushing forward with new ways to use AI tools. As far as where to start, see below for updates on the widely-publicized disagreement between leaders at the Pentagon and one of the major AI companies:

The Pentagon vs. Anthropic

The biggest government-related AI story this week involved a war of words between the Pentagon’s leadership and AI company Anthropic. This story blew up in the mainstream business and technology press and was picked up across government tech media outlets:

  • Anthropic leadership stated it does not want its technology used for operations including domestic surveillance and autonomous lethal activities, which led to the rift with the Pentagon, according to coverage in The Wall Street Journal by Keach Hagey, Amrith Ramkumar, Deborah Acosta and Vera Bergengruen.
  • Bruce Gil reported in Gizmodo that the Pentagon is considering not only severing its business ties with Anthropic over the disagreement but also designating the AI firm as a supply chain risk.
  • Brandi Vincent of DefenseScoop interviewed Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, who said the Pentagon will adhere to laws and regulations associated with surveillance, security and democratic processes as it fast-tracks the military’s frontier AI adoption, but it won’t permit companies supplying the technology to determine its rules for operation.
  • In Breaking Defense, Sydney Freedberg also quoted Michael stating that, “What we’re not going to do is let any one company dictate a new set of policies above and beyond what Congress has passed.”
  • Michael told a group of investors at an industry event this week that the department is actively talking with all four major U.S. AI players—Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and xAI—to ensure the companies and they are at “the same baseline” regarding Pentagon expectations, according to coverage by Patrick Tucker in Defense One.
  • Chris Riotta of GovInfoSecurity spoke to experts who said the Pentagon’s threats to terminate its relationship with Anthropic could have downstream business impacts across emerging defense-sector AI programs.
  • The controversy has pushed other leading AI labs to negotiate with the Pentagon about the terms under which they’ll let the military use their models, Dave Lawler and Maria Curi wrote in Axios.

Full Steam Ahead on Government AI

Despite the flap at the Pentagon, government initiatives to leverage AI have continued to increase. As usual, government tech media outlets were full of examples of various agencies pushing forward with AI initiatives. Here are some examples of that trend we saw this week:

  • Eric Ueland, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, spoke this week at an industry event where he outlined his agency’s plans to take a more assertive role in federal IT oversight, including accelerating AI adoption, according to coverage by Grace Dille in MeriTalk.
  • In CyberScoop,Tim Starks covered remarks this week from a White House official who said that the administration wants to boost the use of AI for cybersecurity in a way that doesn’t increase the number of targets for adversaries to attack.
  • Madison Alder at FedScoop reported that the Department of Health and Human Services noted that AI use cases increased by 65% at the department in 2025, indicating widespread use of the technology to compensate for workforce reductions.
  • Along similar lines, Justin Doubleday wrote in Federal News Network that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) continued to ramp up its use of AI last year in an apparent move to alleviate staffing cuts.
  • Lisbeth Perez reported in MeriTalk on how the General Services Administration’s Public Building Service is also using AI to offset workforce reductions and the Food and Drug Administration to assist employees with tasks such as reviews of drug applications.
  • Covering a speech this week by Nick Weber, acting director in the Office of Scientific Computing Services, Edward Graham of Nextgov/FCW wrote that the agency is using AI to better analyze its research grants and funding efforts – which make up approximately 85% of the agency’s $50 billion annual budget. 
  • In the state and local government domain, officials who spoke at an eRepublic conference this week said they expect tech spending to grow in the coming year, driven partially by the need to move quickly to leverage AI, according to an article in Government Technology by Noelle Knell.
  • On the defense side, the Pentagon plans to jumpstart a new generation of public-private partnerships by promoting its high-tech research to industry through a new AI-augmented database, with an “alpha” version going online by the end of the year, as noted by Freedberg in Breaking Defense.
  • Army training doctrine writers are using AI to produce publications to guide how soldiers operate, Drew F. Lawrence reported in DefenseScoop.
  • In other Army AI news, Kristen Smith wrote in ExecutiveGov that the service is expanding its use of artificial intelligence in procurement, planning two Small Business Innovation Research awards for AI-enabled source selection tools.
  • The Air Force’s Kessel Run software factory is launching an effort to create the “next generation” of the service’s Air Operations Centers, incorporating AI and machine learning, according to a piece by Greg Hadley in Air & Space Forces Magazine. In a separate article, Hadley reported that the Air Force wants to give student pilots “IP GPT,” an AI chatbot tool to help them learn the ropes of flying.

Upcoming Industry Events

One point you might glean from my weekly news roundups might be that reporters in government tech media closely cover industry events as a means of news gathering. Check out the list of events below for events where you might just run into a reporter or two:

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That’ll do it for this week. You can subscribe to this newsletter on LinkedIn or via the form below.