One-Year Retrospective on the Federal Government’s Implementation of Updated AI Guidance: Accelerating Usage with Incomplete Safeguards

One year ago, the Trump Administration released updated Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance to federal agencies about their use and procurement of AI. As federal agencies have taken steps to implement this guidance over the past year, a worrying picture comes into view. Agencies are operating with fewer resources, unclear requirements, and ideological pressures that have resulted in concerning gaps. The seeming lack of transparency and meaningful oversight within federal agencies is even more troubling given how the federal government has aggressively pursued increased adoption through heavily subsidized deals with major AI vendors. The following trends that have emerged over the past year risk undercutting the important progress made within federal agencies on AI governance:

• Enacting contradictory, ideologically-driven requirements while reducing agency capacity
• Allowing inconsistent and missing public reporting of AI uses despite legal requirements and growing AI adoption
• Uneven implementation of AI governance and risk management practices