Donald Trump admin building own chatbot to boost govt tech with AI tools: Report
The project seems to be led by the General Services Administration's Technology Transformation Services, which is run by Thomas Shedd, a former engineer at Tesla, according to theverge.com.
As per New York Times, Shedd is connected to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and has publicly supported using AI to spot fraud, review government contracts, and build 'AI coding agents' to write software for federal agencies.
The draft version of AI.gov, uncovered by 404 Media (the live link currently redirects to the White House website), outlines three tools as part of the platform and says they are 'powered by the best in American AI.'
These include an AI chat assistant, an API that connects to models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, and a dashboard for reviewing how AI is used across agencies. According to 404, the full site was supposed to go live on July 4th.
Also Read: Trump rips apart Musk in brutal attack, calls DOGE 'a monster' that may 'go back and eat Elon'
Elon Musk no longer involved in the government
Even though Musk is no longer involved in the government and is publicly feuding with the President, the AI.gov plan shows that some of DOGE's ideas are still being used.
Shedd, described as a close Musk associate, who has pushed for the GSA to 'operate like a software startup' and has promoted the use of AI tools that other agencies would be required to adopt. The draft site also mentioned plans to work with Amazon Bedrock, Meta's LLaMA, and other FedRAMP-approved vendors, though some of the AI models mentioned do not currently have official government clearance.
Federal workers raised concerns
Some federal workers have raised concerns about the AI project. Internal reaction has been 'pretty unanimously negative,' with employees worried about possible security issues, the risk of bugs affecting key systems, and the chance that AI could suggest canceling important contracts.
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