- Government agencies must ensure the appropriate level of infrastructure to take full advantage of the artificial intelligence systems they acquire.
- If public sector professionals want AI to do more than simple tasks, they need to get the infrastructure in place, a top OpenAI executive told the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 GovCon Executive Leadership Summit.
- Hear more mission-focused AI conversations with key federal officials. 2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit March 18th!
Public sector agencies need to ensure they have the appropriate level of infrastructure to ensure they maximize the value of the artificial intelligence products they procure, top AI executives said at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 GovCon Executive Leadership Summit.
joseph larson, OpenAI Vice President and Head of Government, and Winner of 2026 Wash100 Award In his keynote speech Thursday, the laureate said that AI is rapidly increasing its capabilities. But the infrastructure hasn’t changed.
OpenAI is the developer of ChatGPT and the new ChatGPT Gov, which debuted last year. Larson said many public sector professionals value user experience when acquiring technology. But with AI, he said, it’s all about the intangibles: whether you have the infrastructure to run the agents.
“This is a team sport, and AI requires infrastructure and data to work,” Larson said. “If we want to talk about AI evolving further beyond its current applications, we first need to get the infrastructure in place.”
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Larson said many public sector professionals are excited about AI when he meets with them. But then he asked about the available computing infrastructure and whether it was realistic for their expectations. In many cases, this is not the case.
It probably doesn’t have enough power to do the computing you need. Larson said public sector professionals need to think forward-looking about additional infrastructure to get the most out of their AI investments.
Why should civil servants manage their expectations of AI?
It is also important for public sector professionals to manage expectations regarding the performance of the AI technology they procure. This is especially due to the unique nature of government work, which often impacts national security, consumer health care, and public finances.
Larson has said multiple times that he believes public servants can embrace commercial AI technology, apply it to the unique mission of government work and expect the same level of performance, safety and reliability. AI safety is about preventing accidents, misuse, and other harmful outcomes from AI systems.
He said government agencies that are making the most of AI are dedicating a large portion of their budgets not just to the AI applications themselves, but to the trust and safety of the AI.
“When you talk about the public sector, access and availability of AI is difficult,” Larson said. “We can’t just shove these into sensitive areas of the public sector.”
How is AI outpacing public sector use?
Larson said AI models are outpacing the way public sector professionals use the technology. He said many of the inquiries he receives from public officials are about tasks leading up to ChatGPT’s launch in 2022, such as drafting emails, summarizing reports, and performing basic analysis. While these are useful tasks for AI applications and are not specific to government, Larson said AI cannot be operationalized as a true mission function.
“There’s a gap between what AI can do and how people use it,” he says. “We’re not shrinking, we’re growing.”
As AI capabilities have improved, so has the way the federal government purchases technology. Larson said modern government procurement policies largely reflect how military equipment was purchased before World War II.
Larson said as AI capabilities grow, the federal government needs system-level discipline that is different from how the government acquires technology. This requires thorough iteration between Frontier Institute and the government.
“These reliability challenges cannot be solved in the abstract, and governments cannot deploy these tools without meaningful feedback loops to the teams actually building the tools,” he said.
Who is Joseph Larson?
Joseph Larson is Vice President and Head of Government at OpenAI. Winner of 2026 Wash100 Award The awardee will lead the company’s interactions with federal, international, local and state government partners. He previously served as the president-elect’s chief of staff and senior vice president. Anduril. Larson also served as Deputy Director for Digital and AI in the Office of the Secretary of the Army for Algorithmic Warfare (DCDAO(AW)).
Larson is a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and serves as an intelligence officer.
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