The General Services Administration’s (GSA) USAi platform is no longer free to federal agencies, according to a Sept. 1 update to GSA’s website.
GSA launched its USAi platform last year at no cost to agencies, allowing them to experiment with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities without having to maintain duplicative platforms.
However, according to GSA’s website, the platform now costs a “platform fee plus passthrough usage costs.”
A GSA official familiar with the matter told MeriTalk, “USAi recently transitioned to a simple, transparent pricing model for agencies continuing with the service when the pilot concludes: a fixed platform fee for access to the service, plus the actual cost of model usage.”
The official said that the platform fee is based on an agency’s expected workload, approximated by the size of the agency. “Model usage costs are passed through at cost, with no markup, so agencies pay only for what they use. Costs vary by model,” they added.
The new cost model does not come as a surprise. According to GSA’s budget document for fiscal year 2027, the agency said it was planning to start charging agencies for USAi as part of a “cost-recoverable model.”
“Right now, we’re working with the agencies to understand what would a cost model for them look like,” Zach Whitman, chief data scientist and chief AI officer at GSA, told MeriTalk in May on the sidelines of the 2026 ITVMO Annual Summit. “Because what we want to do is we want to provide a solution that they can see being a useful addendum to their current portfolio.”
Whitman said the USAi trial has been critical in helping GSA determine whether agencies are seeing meaningful returns from the platform.
“We want to understand what the value of this thing is to them and make sure that we’re able to support that value with a staffed program office that would not produce a sub-quality product,” he explained.
“It’s really about understanding what ROI they’re seeing on the platform, and then how big our team needs to be to support them,” Whitman added.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from a GSA official.