Donald Trump admin building own chatbot to boost govt tech with AI tools: Report

Federal workers are concerned as Trump’s AI.gov project, tied to DOGE and Musk’s tech allies, could automate jobs using AI from OpenAI, Meta, and Amazon.

The Trump administration is developing a new website called “AI.gov” and an API meant to “accelerate government innovation with AI,” according to 404 Media, which found a draft version of the site with code posted to GitHub.

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. (Pexels)

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.

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.