The agency is increasing its use of artificial intelligence, and the new capabilities will play an increasingly important role in the agency’s ongoing modernization efforts, a senior Transportation Department official said.
At GovExec’s Government Efficiency Summit on July 16, Deputy Secretary of Transportation Stephen Bradbury said that in-house technology adoption is already helping accelerate needed software upgrades, and the increased use of AI by employees is expected to have an even greater impact on agency operations.
Transportation announced its 1DOT IT Strategy last September to help transform its digital infrastructure. This includes a focus on modernizing and replacing outdated systems.
Bradbury said the new capabilities have already helped the transit agency shorten its software production schedule from 18 months to 18 weeks, noting that “if we need a new software application, we can leverage AI to help.”
Bradbury said agency-wide experiments with AI tools also highlight the wide range of potential benefits from the technology.
Citing internal statistics that “80% of Department of Transportation employees are currently considering using AI,” he said the introduction of current capabilities highlights how the technology can further benefit the American people.
“We’re using this to make rulemaking faster and more effective,” Bradbury said. “We receive tens of thousands of comments on the complex rules we issue. We need to digest and understand them quickly.” [and] respond to them. It’s clear that AI can help with that. Similarly, AI will help review hundreds of grant applications and make better decisions about which projects to support through grants. ”
Beyond the internal use of AI, this capability will also play a key role in the Trump administration’s broader push to upgrade the nation’s outdated air traffic control system. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced the modernization effort in May 2025, saying at the time that the multibillion-dollar effort would include modernized flight operations management systems and updated ground radar systems at all U.S. airports.
Congress approved $12.5 billion for the modernization project as part of the Big, Beautiful Act, but Bradbury said “more is needed” to complete the effort by the end of President Donald Trump’s second term.
He said the Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing the effort, is already building a “Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories” (SMART) system to leverage all available information. [including] Weather, what’s happening on the ground [and] The plane’s entire system is preparing it for takeoff, and it knows in advance what the point of impact will be. ”
The FAA announced last month that it awarded Air Space Intelligence a 12-year, $875 million contract for new software and artificial intelligence capabilities, including the SMART system.
“AI will be essential to making this happen,” Bradbury said.
