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The Daily Scoop Podcast
House Democrats want OPM, OMB to halt plans to collect federal worker health data
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House Democrats are calling on the Trump administ…
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- [00:02]
A
Today on the Daily Scoop Podcast from the Scoop News Group, brought to you by Salesforce. Congressional Democrats are blasting a plan from OPM and OMB to collect federal workers health Data, and the FTC's work on artificial intelligence is about to expand. It's Tuesday, April 21, 2026. Welcome to the Daily Scoop Podcast, where you'll hear the latest news and trends facing government leaders. I'm the host of the Daily Scoop Podcast, Matt Bracken filling in for Billy Mitchell. Thanks so much for joining me. Let's dive into the day's top headlines. House Democrats are calling on the Trump administration to scrap its plans to collect health data about federal workers from insurance companies. The lawmakers argue that the sensitive information could be used to target employees seeking care. It disagrees with the focus of the letter from Democrats to Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Cooper and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vogt is a notice for comment about the collection published by OPM in December. That information collection request called for comments on OPM's plans to collect service, use and cost data from carriers that work with two health care programs that serve federal workers and their families. Those programs are the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits. The collection request would include medical claims, pharmacy claims, encounter data and provider data. While OPM said in that posting that the data would be used to oversee the plans and ensure their quality, the lawmakers argue that the Trump administration is not requiring insurers to anonymize the data and also express concerns that it could use the detailed health information against the more than 8 million Americans that receive benefits through those programs. Signers of the letter, which was led by House Oversight Ranking Member Robert Garcia of California, were specifically concerned about the potential targeting of federal employees who have accessed things like abortion care, contraceptives, in vitro fertilization, gender affirming care, prep for the prevention of HIV, or any other healthcare services targeted by Republicans. The Democrats also noted that impacted insurers have raised concerns about complying with HIPAA, and they're worried about OPM's ability to safeguard the data, citing the 2015 breach of the office. In other news, the Federal Trade Commission is poised to deepen its involvement in curbing the use of AI for malicious purposes, including the spread of non consensual sexualized deepfakes and voice cloning scams. Last year, Congress passed the Take It Down Act, a law that allowed for criminal prosecution of individuals who share or distribute non consensual intimate images and digital forgeries, including those that are AI generated. At a Senate oversight hearing last week, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson called the new law one of the, quote, greatest legislative achievements of the current Congress and President Donald Trump's administration. He also said the FTC was preparing for robust enforcement. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice scored its first successful conviction under the new law when 37 year old Columbus, Ohio, resident James Stroller pleaded guilty to using AI generated deepfake nudes as part of a harassment campaign targeting at least six women. Another section of the law, set to become active in May, will permit individuals to file takedown notices with websites that publish or host sexual deep fakes. Companies will have 48 hours to remove the content or be subject to FTC investigation and enforcement. For more news at the intersection of the federal government and technology, visit fedscoop.com up next, we have an interview with Eli Bayraktari, president and CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project, about SCSP's AI Expo next month in Washington, D.C. and the evolution of AI in the workforce. Let's go to that interview now.
- [04:03]
B
All right. Illy, welcome. So glad to be here and connect with you. You know, it seems like we do one of these every year ahead of the Expo that you guys host. They're always phenomenal. And we're gearing up for another one here in a bit and I really want to dive into that and sort of what to expect for folks that who, who might be in attendance this year, but also some of the different trends and trends and themes that you're following at scsp. But let's start with the Expo. This year's theme is 250 Years of American Innovations Celebrating the Cestertennial. I've never heard that word. But no Bicentennial cestennial. It's a good one. And SCSP has tied the Expo to the idea of the third reconstruction, reconstruction of American innovation. So let's start there. How does the AI revolution compare to the industrial sifts that we've seen back in say, 1776 or 1945 in terms of national survival?
- [04:57]
C
Billy is always good to be with you and thank you. You have always done a great job really, in following us. I think the first podcast we did was during COVID Online. So it's been a while.
- [05:08]
B
I think it's the first one we've done in person.
- [05:09]
C
Right, right, right. So thank you. I mean, look, every year we try to like put a theme on our Expo and I think this year, given the the celebration of 250 years of American, you know, state and you know, birth of this Country. We wanted to really put a theme on top of that. So I think if you have seen buses around DC, it, yeah, you know, Year of Innovation, celebrate 250 years of innovation and American ingenuity. So we wanted to give a theme there. And obviously, you know, we have covered AI for now 8 years as a project, as a team. And I think if you subscribe to the idea that we are on the verge of yet another big turn in our history in our country, where AI is taking us, we thought it's appropriate to call it the third phase of our country. The first being, like the birth of the country. Second being after World War II, when America built the world order that we live in today. And I think the next one that is happening in front of us right now is really the Age of AI. And I think given that the AI plus Expo is sort of like the title of our expo, we thought it's appropriate to go with that theme.
- [06:19]
B
Well, it's exciting and I think it's very accurate. And I know SE SP has always been very sort of ambitious about the way it talks about AI and how it's going to really revolutionize the world, but particularly national security. And you really talked about the decisive decade when you first launched SCSP, and that set to end in 2030, and we're about halfway there now, 2026. And so I would be curious, you know, thinking of that decisive decade, are we winning, quote, unquote, and where is the scoreboard sort of leaning today in terms of our work towards that really important progress in the deciding decade?
- [06:59]
C
I mean, I feel like we're living it right now every day. When you look back, Billy, the first time I started, like, reading or like learning about AI was 2018. I think in 2019, we started the Commission's work that you also covered extremely well. And I Remember back in 2018, there were still two schools of thoughts about AI. There was one that thought, oh, there's another, you know, wave of AI, but it will end up in an AI winter. Because we have had these AI winters for the last couple of decades where there was a lot of enthusiasm, a major technological breakthrough in terms of computer algorithm, but then it would hit a wall. And they used to be called AI Winters. And there was another school of thought in 2018, 19, that thought. This time is different with image recognition, machine learning, natural language processing. There's a school of thought that now is the time that we will see this exponential grow in AI. And today, in 2026, I think we're all living it, I think we're all using it. You have choices of different AI models. Just in the last two, three years since the release of the major ChatGPT model, you have probably had eight dozens of releases of every new model being better, more powerful, more bigger. So I think we're living that moment now that a lot of us were reading about it probably in 2018 or like seeing the early, like, sparks of where this could go. Why this makes it a decisive decade, as we talked before, is we're not alone in pursuing this technology. We have argued time and again that our major competitor, China, is also doubling down on investments in capabilities in companies, because they also realize that whoever like, dominates this technology will set the rules of the road for the next couple of decades, probably, if not this century alone. And so that's why we call it a decisive decade, because we, we wanted that by the end of this decade, American platforms to win, American way of life to dominate, and then, you know, values and norms that we project through these technologies to be used globally instead of what the alternative would be, Chinese. And so that's why we always argue this is a decisive decade. And I think it's still progress. I mean, I think we have always argued that there's not an end date with technology in which you say we will win or they will lose. Yeah, this is a very dynamic situation in which, you know, you saw it with Deep Seek release last year that all of a sudden Chinese can get ahead with an open source model. And so I think there will not be an end date here in which we can call it a win or they will call it a win. I think this will continue for many, many years. And not just on AI, but across all the technologies that matter, because this is how the foundation of the future of the economy, the future of education, society, work is being built right now. So obviously this will be a dynamic competition. And I think our goal is not to lose sight of that competition, but actually stay focused, stay organized, invest in science and technology, invest in people. Because I think ultimately this is about people and who uses this technology for what purposes. I was listening on the Way to Work today, one of the Wall street executives, and he was saying that, you know, we used to work seven days and then humans used to work six days, and then it came down to five days, but 12 hours a day. And he was arguing that maybe with AI we can move back to four days a week. Not mandatory, but people will see going forward, like what makes sense. And so this is Another evolution, I think in terms of how we interact with technology and how technology impacts our life and our work and everything around
- [10:48]
B
us, it's incredibly quickly, quick paced and like you said, you're kind of going through the, you know, the sort of growth curve of how AI has come about. And I think where we are right now, agentic AI is really defining this current moment. And it's something, I think back as you described three, four years ago, we might not have anticipated we'd be here already. So I'm curious, as we look forward to the Expo and sort of think about the way that the federal government, particularly the Pentagon, is adopting and moving from chat bots and LLMs to agentic AI, what does that shift look like for the Pentagon from AI as an assistant to more of AI as an autonomous staff officer? And what's that going to, how's that going to play out at the Expo this year?
- [11:32]
C
Right. So I think at the beginning of the year we said this is going to be the year of agentic AI. Now I would also argue that the capabilities of the gentic AI is still not there, to be honest with you. And when you look at government adoption, government adoption is always more riskier, it takes time. And so I would argue that agentic AI will probably first be adopted by ordinary citizens. You and me, Billy. Sure you will. I mean I have three agentic AI that I use daily. For example. Yeah, two for like family related activities and one for my professional related activity. And basically, I mean they don't do crazy stuff yet. It's just bottom line of like summarizing my emails, providing me logistics with where do I have to bring my kids during the day for different activities. I'm sure this can relate to you. So instead of me thinking am I going to hit traffic on the way to this field or how's the weather going to be in the afternoon? Because it might change. As we have seen the last couple of months, weather in D.C. has been wild. Yes, Gentik AI can do all that for me. So that's a pretty, what I call it, a narrow system of capabilities these agentiki can do right now. Now your question about the adoption. Government. You know, I've spent like more than 12 years in government. Government is always slow to adopt to these things. No matter how much appetite we have, no much how much signal and demand you have from the workforce. Government, because of the role, because of the operational security, cyber defenses and all these things, government will always be much, much slower to these capabilities. So I think in terms of agentic AI. I think what I would look forward to in the next 12 months is that the agent becomes so like a narrow agentic AI for the purposes of, let's say, summarizing your emails or drafting the first draft of that email, or summarizing your calendars. I worked for a four star general and one of the tasks we had was to analyze his calendar and to see where he spends his time more productively. You know, how much time he spent at the White House, how much time he spent with his team, how much time he spent with, you know, like his counterpart. But it would take five individuals on our team to sit down probably for a month to do this analysis. Now with the Genti Ki that's done in like five minutes.
- [13:59]
B
Incredible.
- [14:00]
C
Yeah, right? And then so if you and I want to have that kind of an insight of where we spend our time and our priorities, you can easily just have somebody in the background that always is looking out for like, hey, you have spent more time now outside of the office or inside the office, you spend more time doing podcasts than you spend time doing research or whatever. But I think this year would be that year in which that agentic AI adoption starts flowing into the government and people start seeing the benefits of that. I think a wider agent adoption really depends on technical infrastructure. Like, you know, we always say, like, it's easy to. I think people have this perception that it's easy really to plug and play whatever exists in private sector into government. Yeah, it's not that easy because you don't have the same infrastructure, you have different risk issues, you have to worry about. Cloud infrastructure is always like two steps forward, one step backward in the government. But I think for the agentic AI to have, and you know, people talk about this next generation Agent Ki in which my Agent Ki will talk to your Agent Ki. And all this arrangement that we had to go through between you and me to schedule this podcast would be done by Origen Tkis. And I think for that, I think we still have some time to go. I think you need some kind of a protocols to be developed because you'll probably use a different Agent Ki from a different company that Gentek AI that I will use. And so in order for them to really talk to each other, I think you have to, you have to have some common protocols in place. Private sector companies, I think they're moving in that space right now because if you try to, let's say, go from one of the platforms using agentic AI, let's say, buy a book in Barnes and Nobles online. It's not very seamless. You still have to go through cookies. You have to create a profile in Barnes and Nobles or sign in as a guest. So there are many, many steps that are still not working. Because I think, let's say Barnes and Nobles doesn't have yet a con protocol that is working with one of these large language platforms. So I think we have ways to go even in private sector if, if I can see before this moves into the government where, you know, to Agent Ki can start talking about scheduling meetings, doing notes, writing papers, or executing any kind of capabilities going forward.
- [16:16]
B
Yeah, it's a fascinating landscape, I think, to watch just the implications of this world of AI agents that are out there doing things that, like you said, it's. There's a lot of development that needs to happen before we get there, but definitely exciting to see what happens in that area. One of the other spaces that I know that Expo is really paying attention to is physical AI. We've seen China really making massive strides there with robotics and autonomous manufacturing. I'd be curious, you know, we don't hear so much about that here in the US and the US is more focused on software and sort of the language models and whatnot. So what's the race in sort of competition like between China and the US on that front? And what's the conversation going to be focused on at the Expo where you're talking a bit more about physical frontiers this year?
- [17:05]
C
I think where we are now in terms of robotics and advanced manufacturing, I think a natural, so like evolution and development from large language models is now physical AI. I think for many, many years we had companies that were trying to make it a breakthrough in terms of robotics and building robotics. We've seen videos online, we have seen that. But I think they would hit a wall because it was just the technology was still not there. So I think the AI gives a new window for these companies really to move into the next step of whether they are human aid robots or like robotics for advanced manufacturing. So like we started noticing that, you know, like China, like in every other technology is coming out with some incredible capabilities. I mean they have several companies that are really good and given the scale and so like resources that China has, you saw just a major breakthroughs in terms of production, in terms of like deployment of these humanoid robots from China. What we have done is in the last couple of months we've done a couple of things. Number one is we have done it so like a net assessment, where are we versus China in this space. Secondly, there was a lot of chatter in our Congress to create a commission on this because of our, as you know Bill, because of our like budget cycles and like legislative side, we thought this is such an urgent issue that we created the commission. So we have two senators, Senator Slotkin and Senator Rudd co chairing this commission. We brought some of the leading companies we have with academics and the next 12 months we're going to look at, hey, we like two aspects of this. Number one is what do we have to do to move faster in the space. And number two for this administration building, manufacturing, back investments, they're all part of this new era of AI re industrialization. But who's going to work in these factories, right? And so unless we get, you know, to make huge advancements in robotics and advanced manufacturing, we will have all these investments, all these plants being built, but we will not have humans working in them. Just because I think the labor has moved in terms of like where are we now as a country? And so that commission will look also that piece of, you know, this equation to the, to your last point is for the first time in our expo we will have a robot arena.
- [19:29]
B
Nice.
- [19:30]
C
We have five companies that will bring cutting edge robots they have built. And I think some of them are really amazing without going into highlighting one over the other. But I think you will see for the first time demos from these robots, from these companies what it means to bring you a glass of water, you know, moving around and helping with just household items. And so we have built a special space at this expo where we will showcase, you know, that or give you a glimpse of that future that I think we will inevitably move because I think there are certain jobs, certain skills and certain like tasks that I think we will benefit by having robots doing them instead of humans. I will never forget Billy bit like when we were at the AI commission, the Japanese embassy came and they briefed us on their AI strategy. And it was called, if I remember correctly, it's been a couple of years society 3.0 and it was built from 2035 forward and it was all dependent on robotics. And I asked them like, hey, how is the sentiment in Japan, you know, vis a vis robots? Because generally like there's this like anti sentiment when it comes to robots based on the movies, based on like everything we have seen so far. And they said, look, we have no choice given the demographics, given the trends that are happening in Japan where, you know, you have more people in the old age than in new age. He said our Choice is really no choice. We have to build robots to take care of elderly people in our country. And so for me that was an eye opening situation that here's a society that understands where they're going and why they need to build this kind of an industry because otherwise there's nobody else to take care of your citizens. So I think luckily we don't have the demographic problem I think in the United States, but still there are certain skills and tasks that I think robots will do compared to humans. Much, much better, faster, probably with less cost. So it's fascinating. So I invite everybody to come and see at the expo. We will showcase some of these robots in our demos.
- [21:28]
B
That's, that's incredible. I mean, I think getting to experience those things, but also learning from the commission will hopefully be an eye opening moment. You know, I'm one of those, I would count myself within this sort of interested, but maybe skeptical. So having those opportunities to kind of grab.
- [21:44]
C
We have ways to go, like I would say, like I watch a lot of videos online about these robots and we have ways to go in terms of like I was watching this video this morning, is it fast if I go get a bottle of water from my fridge or whether I take one of my robots to do it? And you know, there are videos online, as you can imagine, that people count. How many minutes does it take for a robot to do it? Now are you going to be patient and wait two minutes for robot to walk from here there, open the fridge, bring you a bottle of water, or you can just go and do it yourself? But these robots will change as you know, like they will evolve, they'll be better, faster, more skillful. And so eventually you will have that robot Billy, that will bring you a bottle of water faster than you'll get it from your couch.
- [22:25]
B
Love it, love it. So sort of taking the conversation in a bit of a different direction. You know, if you're in the national security defense AI space, you've heard a lot about this anthropic decision that the Pentagon made to list it as a supply chain threat because it wouldn't sort of kneel to the department's wishes in terms of letting it use it for whatever it wants. Essentially, Anthropic had guardrails and kind of objected to the Pentagon doing that. So that has left sort of a post anthropic fallout environment in the government where we see more of a private sector companies maybe doing things with their AI models that they maybe didn't want to have done. So all that said I'd be curious, what's your assessment of the adoption of AI for national security in the aftermath of that? What's the environment look like now that that decision has been made?
- [23:18]
C
I mean, look, I'm no longer in government mobility, so it's really hard to like probably know every side and every detail. I know there's a court case about this right now happening. I thought from the beginning this is an unfortunate situation that we shouldn't have not gotten here for both sides. I think there's a little bit of misunderstanding on both sides. First of all, I thought the anthropic, despite all the respect I have, and we're friends with a lot of people in Anthropic, I think they should have understood better the role of Department of War in this case or Department of Defense. I mean I spent 12 plus years in government, especially in DoD, and I think the role of Department of Defense when you read the mission is lethality to launch war if deterrence fail. And if you need to launch war, you win the war. Yeah, I mean, so it's a pretty clear mission that has been there on the website for many, many decades. So I think that's the, I think the misperception I think anthropic had about the roles and responsibilities. And also like sometimes I'm a bit skeptical about to what extent these things are used. Like, because I think everybody that it's outside of government thinks that every time you put AI in warfare, you think about killer robots, you think about AI enabled lethal autonomous weapon systems. And that's not always the case, Billy. Like, you know, I don't know for what purposes Claude was used, but sometimes technology is used from like, you know, scheduling appointments to doing timesheets to doing travel. So like there's a range of DoD missions that you can use these models. I think on the outside the sense was like this was used for the most critical lethal autonomous weapon systems that ultimately killed people or was involved in a kinetic action. We don't know that. And I think you just need to have a much more understanding of what DOD does writ large to understand. Like maybe Claude wasn't used just for that, maybe it was used for other left of conflict, more non kinetic like capabilities. So that's, I think it leaves that a little bit unclear on the DOD side. I thought it was an overreaction to you know, make a determination that anthropic is a supply chain risk. I don't think they should have gone that far. You know, like with every contractor there are terms and Conditions that both sides have to adhere to.
- [25:43]
B
Sure.
- [25:44]
C
In this case, if the company didn't adhere to, you can cut the contract, find another vendor. But like, I think calling them a supply chain risk at the time, when we all know where the risk is, whether it's from Russia or China, I think just elevates the bar for a company that it has an incredible capability that will help our men and women in uniform. Yeah. So I thought there was a lot of misunderstanding. I think they both came from, like, different positions into this conversation, and then when it escalated, like, nobody wanted to back down. And I think we need, as a country, both sides to cool off, like, find a space to understand each other's concerns, obviously, and find a way to bring Claude back. Because I think if it's a great model and our men and women in uniform need it, I think we should give it to them. I think we don't want to live in a situation in which everybody has access to our best model to include maybe China, but our men and women in uniform don't have it. And so I think it went a little bit to the extreme, which we thought it was unnecessary. But I think we live at a time when we have to sit down, have a normal conversation and solve this outside of the court, because I think now it has gone to the point that we have to let the court decide about this issue.
- [26:58]
B
Yeah, well, it brings an interesting point, too. You were sort of hinting at this, but how AI is currently being used in ongoing operations, whether it's Venezuela, Iran or elsewhere. And I'm curious your take on that. I know we don't have full clarity into exactly how it's being used, but I think it's a good indicator that maybe we're adopting AI at a rate that is better than we might have previously thought, because it seems like it's now playing a more central role in some supporting mechanism or maybe in a direct way in some of these operations.
- [27:33]
C
No, you're right, Billy. And this, you know, when. When we look back at the Commission, the one question we had to answer was AI for DOD for what? And so we broke it down into four categories. The first one was like, back office responsibilities. Can AI help you move faster in terms of back office responsibilities, including cyber defenses? Absolutely. We talked about timesheets, we talked about payrolls, emails, you know, document editing faster and all these things. Absolutely. The second category that I think evolved for the last three plus years is indications of warning, where AI can take these massive amount of information and, and really give you the bottom line up front, or look at the imagery and say, like, we see movements in this space. That is an anomaly. You should pay attention. And I think you have so many companies that have evolved because of AI and this indications and warning, which is used primarily for intelligence purposes. And I would. I would probably guess that a lot of AI that was used for Venezuela or Iran has to do with, like, do we see patterns here? Do we see behavior that we can, you know, predict going forward? The third category was decision making. AI can help you move faster. Absolutely. We see it daily. And, you know, my job in the department was always to give more options to your leadership. Right. With AI, you can give so many options. You can have AI analyze Red team it for you, provide the pros and cons. So I think that one is the space we're probably looking at right now more actively. Just because if DoD or Dow has access now to the models, I would ask if I would have to write a memo. I would ask any large language models in front of me, I would say, like, hey, what is missing in my memo? How can I make it better? What options have. Have I not thought about it? And then you would bring it to the leadership and say, like, hey, it's up to the human, then to decide the course of action. I think the most sensitive part that I think everybody jumps into is the AI enabled lethal autonomous weapon systems. And I think what's happening in Iran and what happened in Venezuela, now people are actively talking about what capabilities might have been used there. Ukraine also opened another chapter in how you can use these kind of capabilities. And so we'll find out probably, like, as this conflict against Iran evolves, what progress has been made in that space. DoD has a directive for lethal autonomous weapon system. It has been in place for many, many years. It has been updated. And so we will find out, I think, Billy, in terms of, like, did AI enter that space, how it was used on weapon systems or not? Or was it just enabling humans, you know, really launching these weapon systems to do maybe a faster action and counteraction.
- [30:23]
B
I mean, one area that we really haven't touched on yet but, you know, really is, you know, all part of this is, is sort of the space race. I mean, we're watching it play out on TV today with what's going on with Artemis, too. One of your reports in 2026 focused on the space race in the 21st century. So how much of our AI advantage is going to be determined in low Earth orbit and play out there over the next two Years.
- [30:48]
C
So there are two. There are two, I think pieces to your question. Number one is obviously we're in the competition with China on space. We wrote a report, as you mentioned. China has a clear goal. They want to land, they want to do lunar landing by 2030. Right. So I think the Artemis 2 and I think the subsequent Artemis are really trying to get ahead of that and like beat China there. Space matters for many, many things, as you mentioned, for communications, military operations, just like everything we do probably daily, one way or another. If you look at back at the start of the Ukraine war, I think Russians went first after Ukrainian satellite capabilities and then they started like ground invasion, just so they can blind them before the operation. In terms of data and energy, I think you have now a couple of ideas floating out there that in absence of us building more energy on Earth, you have to build outside of Earth these new energy sources, data centers. Because of the limitless possibilities that exist. We'll see how we get there. I mean, you have a couple of companies that are thinking about it, doing work in this space, but it only shows you that this whole area for more energy, more data centers really is not going to stop in the foreseeable future, that I think companies are looking for other ways to expand their foothold.
- [32:11]
B
Yeah, it's fascinating and I think AI is that thing that seems to be tying it all together. So it's really exciting to watch. I'm sure there will be a lot of those threads connected bringing it back to the Expo. And so as we close out our conversation, I've been to the Expo, but for somebody who hasn't, it's, it's, it's grand, it's, it's a lot going on, there's a lot to learn. But for somebody who's listening into this conversation, who might be interested, what's, you know, something that you would think is, is a top takeaway that they would hope, you would hope they'd walk away with about American competitiveness and what do you want them to see at the Expo this year?
- [32:49]
C
So this year what we have done, Billy, is like, look, I think XP is an experience like you can build your adventure if you come there. If you're interested in Quantum, probably by the end of two days at the Expo and being so, like, confronted with all the discussions and expertise on Quantum, you'll end up understanding Quantum better. So we wanted to build that kind of a environment this year. What we're doing is we have Thursday and Friday built for like more than 200 conversations. As I Told you. We have a robot arena, drone arena. We have a bookstore. You know, in the age when people, I love bookstore, like I think in the age when people like don't buy any more books as much as they used to, we have built. Every year the bookstore has been bigger and better. This year we have 12 authors coming in our biggest bookstore yet, where you can sit, you can listen to the author talk about his book or her book and you can buy the books, actually physical books, because we partner with the Kramer's books here in Dupont Circle. And then as I mentioned on Saturday, which is different from last year, is on Saturday, I hope that families with kids will come because you can build a robot, you can have a STEM workshop so you have a hands on experience with like, what does this technology mean, how can I touch it and how I can feel it and how I can build it. So this year's I think that's a different angle that we are exploring at the Expo. But again, like it's an experience because we have allies and partners coming. We have tech companies across the tech sector coming there. We have incredible lineup of speakers. It's just a lot, but I think it's an incredible experience to learn. But also if you want to like push yourself to build a robot, you can do it on Saturday. We have universities coming on Saturday explaining how you build a robot, how you do stem and all these things. So I just invite everybody May 7 through 9 here at the convention center in Washington for an unforgettable experience.
- [34:41]
B
I think, well, I'll be there. The Scoop publications will be there. We'll be watching, covering it. We're really excited as always. The bookstore, I love it. I fanboyed a little bit when I saw General McChrystal there last year.
- [34:54]
C
Line for his book signing was like really, really long.
- [34:57]
B
Yeah, it's, it's, it's very cool. So I can vouch for it. Definitely the place to be. Really excited to see it this year and wish you guys the best of luck.
- [35:05]
C
Thank you for having me, Billy. Absolutely.
- [35:06]
A
For more on the AI Expo, visit FedScoop.com up next, Salesforce public sector strategist Mia Jordan joins host Wyatt Cash in a discussion about how the emerging agentic enterprise model could help government eliminate fragmented workflows and operate more efficiently. This segment was sponsored by Salesforce.
- [35:33]
D
Welcome to this segment of FedScoop's Daily Scoop podcast sponsored by Salesforce. In this latest episode, we take a look at the evolution of agentic AI in government and the increasing momentum towards what our Next guest calls the the Agentic Government Enterprise over the past year or two, technology and AI leaders have talked about the growing capabilities of agentic AI and its ability to facilitate increasingly sophisticated back office and operational tasks. However, at the end of the day, while federal employees are starting to benefit from task automation, those benefits remain relatively confined, mainly within their sphere of operations. True transformation will depend on orchestrating automation across the enterprise. And here to talk about that and the potential of agentic enterprises in general is Mia Jordan, a former federal CIO at the U.S. departments of Agriculture and later Education, and now public sector strategist at Salesforce. Mia, welcome to the program.
- [36:40]
E
Hi Wyatt, thank you for having me.
- [36:42]
D
Always great to have you. So before we get started, I'd like to level set a bit here. How do you define what an agentic enterprise is and what does that look like for federal agencies and federal workers?
- [36:57]
E
Well, we know first and foremost that government is an industry of industry. And when you think about that, you think about departments like USDA or you think about a DHS and how they have numerous missions that are residing under one departmental umbrella. And so when we think about how government operates, understanding that there are often various missions that are running under one roof, we realize that government does a lot of tab switching where email chains turn to conversations. But ultimately we are thinking about an agentic enterprise where agents can run on a single secure platform that scales your workforce without adding headcount. And we'll get into more specifics on that, but we think about this in terms of how it connects your systems, how we can automate the routine and ultimately free your workforce so that they can focus on mission critical work.
- [38:09]
D
Well, Mia, you've often mentioned that government employees frequently act as, I think, what you've called swivel servants. Can you explain what you mean by that and why that actually creates so many points of friction across federal agencies?
- [38:25]
E
Yeah, well, you know, friction first and foremost occurs across work between different functional areas. And again, as I mentioned before, you think of a, a typical workflow in government that may be very disconnected, where one task happens in email, another task happens in a spreadsheet, and then another task happens in a system of record. So what we understand is that knowledge workers in government typically switch between tens, sometimes hundreds, up to 1,000 times a day in order to complete a single task. Let me say that one more time, they switch between different applications more than 1,000 times a day, often. Right. Depending upon their workload. And so the reality is that as budgets and staff are fixed and in many cases Shrinking, we need to create a false multiplier that helps them be more digitally productive. And so swivel chair, that's where that term came from. A colleague of mine here in the company, and I kind of termed that coin, excuse me, term, coin, that phrase about swivel chair where we're working between multiple screens constantly and that a single, as we're going to get to a single work operating system helps to reduce that friction, where we get to be able to see all of the work in a single screen.
- [39:56]
D
Well, let's talk about that a little bit more. How do federal agencies really need to think or rethink about transitioning from deploying AgentIC AI at A, let's say a granular level to moving more towards a more fully functioning agentic enterprise?
- [40:13]
E
So, you know, a lot, there's so much focus on AI being a tool and not a lot of focus on how AI allows us to work differently. And so I really want to focus on that. And so when we start thinking about transitioning from deploying an agentic AI to more of a fully functioning agentic enterprise, it starts with bringing all of that work from various disconnected tools into a single workflow like Slack. And this is what we see as the gateway to the platform where we can bring real time, context driven insights directly into, into the flow of work. We've been talking about the flow of work now for a few years. And so that is our point of view in terms of how work happens. And what we are proposing is that we now bring all of that work into a work operating system. And this is where we go way beyond just completing tasks, but this is about how we handle summarizations, approvals, task assignments directly within the flow of work.
- [41:27]
D
Can you maybe share some specific examples perhaps in procurement or HR workflows where, you know, this more enterprise approach really makes a tangible difference?
- [41:40]
E
Yeah. So procurement is, I think, a really important example because a typical contracting officer or contracting specialist is usually engaging with a stakeholder in an email and then they may transition that work into a spreadsheet and then they have to create all of the documents right around a future procurement with a lot of back and forth again happening in email. And then it ultimately works its way into a contract writing system and then it works its way into some kind of financial system. Right. To commit the funds. And so I take you into that, the details of that, the hairy details of that, because all of that back and forth can now be transacted into a single channel instead of a fragmented trail of emails and Spreadsheets. And what we're seeing is that this can ultimately reduce the number of days that it takes to get from a requirement to an actual solicitation that's on the street. We have other examples, too. Onboarding is another example of how to bring all of the stakeholders in an agency into a single channel in order to smooth the process of onboarding a new employee.
- [43:06]
D
So one of the things that I found interesting about Salesforce is some of its relatively recent acquisitions like Slack and Informatica, Mulesoft and Tableau. How do these pieces fit together in the context of agentic AI to take the friction out of operations?
- [43:25]
E
So thank you for asking that question because oftentimes I think that our stack and portfolio of products are seen as individual pieces and not seen as a stack, a complimentary stack of capabilities that ultimately help our stakeholders, our customers, across government. But the recent, more recent acquisitions, I think, are really, really important. When you start thinking about our acquisition now of Informatica and Mulesoft and how that is going to provide a way to easily connect data across numerous systems. Right. That government has to work inside of and alongside of without having to rip and replace. We have what we call zero copy that allows for us to go and get the data, but not necessarily have to move the data, which often results in a lot of risk, additional costs to government, and a lot of time loss in terms of moving that data. Our acquisition of Tableau now and how it fits inside of our platforms is thinking about as work is getting done, how do leaders in the organization and staff visualize what is actually happening across the organization in real time? And then last but not least, you know, I've talked about Slack, but our customers are still, I think, trying to figure out, well, how does Slack fit into the picture here when you start thinking about a workflow? And what we are suggesting is that our customers use Slack in a way where it is now going to act as that engagement layer because collaboration has to happen as work gets done. And as I mentioned, that collaboration often happens in a different channel, in emails, sometimes in your notes, all different kinds of places. Right. And that engagement layer is ultimately where they have the use of AI agents to collaborate around the work that has been connected and ultimately visualized. And I think that that's a pretty cool proposition to move government into a space like that.
- [45:37]
D
And then lastly, you know, as agencies, I think, come to terms with the rapidly increasing cadence of change, now with AI, it's getting harder and harder to just keep up with the developments. And, you know, how to make sure that gets implemented through their organizations, I guess. What advice would you have on what should there be? What should there more immediate focus be? To move again towards away from not just agentic tools, but into an agentic enterprise.
- [46:08]
E
So with AI and the fact that AI can connect to multiple disparate systems to unearth insights that otherwise you may have had to have five meetings and hire lots of contractors to understand what was happening in an organization, how to. How to engage with constituents. What I see now is that AI is really having our customers focus on how the organization functions. I can use Salesforce as an example. I'll call us customer zero, right. In terms of drinking our own champagne here in the company. And the adoption of AI is that it has kind of shrunk some of the layers in the organization where now it is bringing people from various functions in the. In the organization together in a way where we can remove the friction of doing the work and that we can focus more on the outcomes that we're trying to achieve because the work is now in a single space. And so those org charts in government, if you've ever seen a government org chart, Wyatt, they're normally really, really big and really, really deep. We used to call them fiefdoms when I was in government. And so the fiefdom structure, I think we're going to blur the lines a little bit now with AI because information and data can be shared and become a lot more meaningful to more people now with it, with an agentic enterprise,
- [47:41]
D
well, it certainly has so much promise and certainly represents so much new opportunity, I think, to, as you say, kind of help the sort of swivel servants be more productive in government. So for me and Jordan, always a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much for sharing your government and commercial market perspectives on really the practical application of AI and the advanced platforms for government. So thank you so much for joining us.
- [48:09]
E
Thank you, Wyatt. As always,
- [48:14]
A
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Daily Scoop podcast, available on all podcast platforms. If you've already rated the podcast on your platform of choice, thank you. High ratings and good reviews of the show help more people find it. The Daily Scoop podcast is a production of the Scoop News Group in Washington, D.C. adam Butler and Carlin Fisher help put this show together and the entire Scoop News Group team contributes. We'll be back tomorrow with more top headlines. Until then, I'm your host, Matt Bracken.
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C
Thanks for listening.