Federal agencies are increasingly applying artificial intelligence (AI) to workforce management, procurement, and policy analysis, according to leaders from the General Services Administration (GSA) and National Guard Bureau speaking at IBM Think Gov 2026 on June 9.
Agencies are beginning to apply the technology to operational functions, including workforce planning, acquisition support, and inspection activities. At the same time, officials said workforce education, culture change, and policy alignment remain critical to broader adoption.
For the National Guard, one of the most promising use cases is workforce and skills management, said Delester Brown Jr., chief data and AI officer at the National Guard Bureau.
Brown said traditional military occupational specialties often fail to capture the full range of expertise Guard members bring from their civilian careers.
“How do we work with this workforce and put them to real work that they’re really, really good at?” Brown asked.
He said the National Guard is exploring AI tools to improve skills matching, workforce planning, and career pathing across its force structure.
AI can also help agencies improve outcomes in procurement, Brown noted. He said defense organizations have historically struggled to communicate requirements effectively to industry partners, contributing to acquisition inefficiencies.
Generative AI and agentic AI tools can analyze prior solicitations, identify gaps, evaluate outcomes, and help agencies develop stronger requirements and contract language, he observed.
Jennifer Rostami, assistant commissioner for technology talent within GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, said public inventories of approved AI use cases do not fully capture the breadth of agencies work with AI.
“What it reflects is summarizing emails, doing tasks like integrating AI,” Rostami said. “What’s not getting talked about publicly is how agencies are experimenting with AI.”
At the same time, she emphasized that agencies must balance innovation with public accountability.
“As the government, we are responsible to the public to be conservative with what we do,” she said.
Rostami pointed to GSA’s work with the Agriculture Department as one example of AI moving from experimentation into production. The agencies partnered to apply a computer vision technology to evaluate meat marbling, a task traditionally performed by inspectors.
“We worked with USDA to help introduce AI in their meat marbling,” Rostami said. “Can AI do that with vision detection? Absolutely. And we built the first model in partnership with USDA.”
Beyond technology investments, Brown noted that successful AI adoption will depend heavily on workforce education, culture change, and consistent policies across military, civilian, and contractor workforces.
“Part of my job, 80% of it was education and empowerment,” Brown said. “I’m here to break and change culture.”
Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for employees, Brown said agencies should focus on using the technology to augment human expertise.
“I don’t do artificial intelligence,” he said. “I do amplified intelligence. I’m amplifying who they are.”