Government & Communications

This July marks the one-year anniversary of the Big Beautiful Bill’s enactment.

On July 23, 2026, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)—the legislative branch's audit and investigative agency—released Combating Fraud: Managing Risks in Federally Funded, State-Administered Programs (GAO-26-109100). GAO calls this a "Q&A report," a short-form GAO product prepared for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and addressed to Chairman James Comer R-KY) and Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA).

This playbook serves as a practical guide for U.S. government agencies developing and scaling enterprise AI solutions, with a focus on GenAI technology. More than a technical manual, it balances strategic vision with operational detail to help agencies move from experimentation to implementation with confidence. None of this work is one-size-fits-all; we hope agencies adapt the suggested processes and methodologies to fit their specific needs and uses, and should consult their own legal, security, and compliance offices before implementation.

When the Trump administration canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October, it framed the move as an urgent corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste. But it wasn’t true.

On July 22, 2026, the U.S. Government Accountability Office—the audit and investigative arm of Congress—released a report describing what happened to money Congress appropriated in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act after the Trump administration ordered agencies to review that money against its own priorities.

The technolibertarian dream of a borderless internet may soon get its biggest reality check in years.

Dustin Lloyd, a Democratic primary candidate for Missouri’s state legislature, was a well-known member of his community when he started his political campaign. But there was one important group that didn’t seem to know him at all: A.I. chatbots. If voters quizzed a chatbot like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini about Mr. Lloyd, they would find only basic information that failed to convey his focus on helping small businesses. Fortunately for Mr. Lloyd, there was a fix. He tweaked his online presence, publishing a Q&A about himself on his campaign website.

If you are a school or library seeking E-Rate discounts, a rural health care provider, a Lifeline provider serving low-income households, or a carrier deploying networks with high-cost support, you deal with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC)—the private, not-for-profit corporation that administers the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Universal Service Fund (USF).

Every year, the Federal Communications Commission releases an annual performance plan that outlines the FCC's agenda and the goals it seeks to achieve. On July 6, the FCC released its Agency Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2027, which provides the public with a general outline of what the agency is prioritizing in the near future—and what it is not.

The French government said this year that it would replace Zoom and other American videoconference software with a French-developed alternative. Germany is building a homegrown platform for artificial intelligence. Companies in both countries are teaming up to build A.I. chips to rival those of the United States and China. These are modest steps in Europe’s high-stakes race to catch up to America and China in the global sprint for digital independence.