An inventory documenting the federal government’s use of artificial intelligence in 2025 is currently being prepared for release by the White House Office of Management and Budget, according to a senior Trump administration IT official.
In a statement to FedScoop, Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Greg Barbascia said, “OMB is compiling publicly posted AI Use Case Inventory submissions and will soon publish consolidated federal resources on GitHub.”
The anticipated release marks the latest year of reporting for the annual AI Use Case Publication, the first under the Trump administration, which has pushed to expand the use of technology to advance efficiency goals.
News of the impending inventory comes after a deadline circulated internally this summer had already passed. The administration has set a Nov. 4 deadline for agencies to submit their inventories to OMB and a Dec. 2 deadline for agencies to post that information on agency websites, according to June internal guidance obtained by FedScoop. But that original deadline was within the scope of the government shutdown.
In an interview with the Daily Scoop Podcast in December, Barbascia acknowledged that the government was considering the closure date and the subsequent holiday season when setting inventory expectations, but said it would not result in a “significant delay.”
The federal government’s inventory process for AI use cases was the result of an executive order created in the final days of the first Trump administration. It then began during the Biden administration and was enacted into law in 2022.
The catalog was originally intended to improve transparency, help agencies coordinate its use, and inform policy guidance on the use of the technology, but it took several years for the publication to become useful. Early iterations of these inventories were riddled with inconsistencies, delays, and even errors. The process was generally improved in the 2024 publication following the Biden administration’s efforts to “strengthen” the process.
This inventory ultimately included a total of 2,133 publicly reportable use cases across 41 federal agencies. In comparison, the Consolidated List published in 2023 reports approximately 700 use cases across the inventory.
Changes to the 2024 collection include publishing a consolidated list of federal AI use cases on the development platform GitHub, making data more accessible and improving documentation across the government. Barbaccia’s statement indicates that publishing to that platform will continue.
While the inventory serves as a barometer of government adoption of the technology, it is important to note that it is not designed to encompass all uses of AI across the federal government.
This process does not include elements of the Department of Defense or the intelligence community. Additionally, this disclosure does not include non-public use cases, such as those used for national security, or research and development of technologies not ultimately intended for use by government agencies.
What should and should not be included, such as research and development, has traditionally been a point of confusion for agencies. As a result, some of the year-to-year changes in inventory are purely due to improved reporting over time.
According to June guidance obtained by FedScoop, inventories are expected to be relatively similar to last year, which increases the likelihood of year-over-year improvement. The biggest part of the process that has changed is how agencies handle uses that require more sophisticated risk management.
The Biden administration has introduced a classification known as “impacting rights and safety” uses, which must be subject to stricter management practices. The Trump administration’s governance practices have a similar, but slightly different, category called “high-impact” uses.
Similar to classifications that impact rights and safety, inventory must disclose whether a use is high-impact, per guidance obtained by FedScoop. However, high-impact uses cover a slightly different group of applications. Critical infrastructure uses, medical devices, and biometric identification all fall under the new high-impact umbrella, but election integrity and use cases for replacing a person’s voice or likeness without consent were not mentioned in the new examples.
It is not yet clear how these differences will impact inventory reporting, but approximately 16% of reported uses in 2024 fell into the previous category.
Another aspect of this process that is different from previous years is the lack of publicly available guidance for government agencies regarding inventory. Previously, this guidance was published online and set public expectations regarding deadlines and reporting standards. FedScoop obtained that guidance independently.
So far, only a few agencies appear to have documented their 2025 inventory status on their websites, including the Office of Personnel Management and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. According to the guidance, if inventories are made public, they must be posted on each agency’s website.[agency.gov]/love. ”
