Office of Management and Budget Directs Federal Agencies to Advance AI Governance; Manage AI Risks
Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young directed federal agencies to advance Artificial Intelligence governance and innovation while managing risks from the use of AI in the federal government.
“While AI is improving operations and service delivery across the federal government, agencies must effectively manage its use,” OMB Director Shalanda Young said in a March 28 memo. “As such, this memorandum establishes new agency requirements and guidance for AI governance, innovation, and risk management, including through specific minimum risk management practices for uses of AI that impact the rights and safety of the public.”
As required by Executive Order 14110, each agency must designate a Chief AI Officer within 60 days of March 28, the date the memo was issued.
“With appropriate safeguards in place, AI can be a helpful tool for modernizing agency operations and improving Federal Government service to the public,” Young said in the memo. “To that end, agencies must increase their capacity to responsibly adopt AI, including generative AI, and take steps to enable sharing and reuse of AI models, code, and data.”
Agencies must also manage risks from the use of AI, Young noted. “Agencies are subject to existing risk management requirements relevant to AI, and this memorandum does not replace or supersede these requirements,” the memo said. “Instead, it establishes new requirements and recommendations that, both independently and collectively, address the specific risks from relying on AI to inform or carry out agency decisions and actions, particularly when such reliance impacts the rights and safety of the public. To address these risks, this memorandum requires agencies to follow minimum practices when using safety-impacting AI and rights-impacting AI, and enumerates specific categories of AI that are presumed to impact rights and safety. Finally, this memorandum also establishes a series of recommendations for managing AI risks in the context of Federal procurement.”
