The United Bots of America
AI and the Federal Workforce.
In 2025, the federal workforce shrank by 10.3%, according to the Pew Research Center. Not only did people leave government service in record numbers (80.8% more departures than 2024), but less people started working for the government (55.6% less new hires than 2024). These trends were the result of aggressive reduction tactics, including the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), reductions in force, and hiring freezes. These initiatives were touted by the Administration as a way to both downsize and modernize the workforce.
Will this trend continue as we march through 2026, and could it be accelerated by the adoption of AI?
Embracing the Robots.
New reports of AI-related layoffs in the private sector are making everyone nervous. On May 7, 2026, an executive outplacement firm (Challenger, Gray, and Christmas) reported that AI was cited as the leading reason for private sector layoffs for the second month in a row.
In April, Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) announced plans to cut 10% of its workforce. Meta is encouraging workers to embrace AI tools, incorporating AI usage into employee performance appraisals, and tracking employee computer activity to help train AI. Similarly, it has been reported that Block (a financial tech company that owns Square, Cash App, and Afterpay) plans to cut 40% of its workforce and Coinbase (a cryptocurrency exchange platform) plans to cut 14% of its workforce. Oracle already cut around 19% of its workforce in April, and Microsoft has offered early retirement to employees as a means to shrink its workforce. In each case, AI investments, tools, and workflow changes were cited as the reason for the reductions.
Most of these reductions are limited to tech companies. Tech companies are naturally more susceptible to AI impacts because they employ computer programmers and AI is particularly adept at coding. However, it is reported that AI-driven layoffs are happening across many white-collar functions, including marketing, human resources, and administrative support - functions that go well beyond tech companies.
A Tale of Resistance.
The federal government has been slower to embrace AI even though the last three Administrations made AI adoption a priority.
In 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order 13960, encouraging federal agencies to use AI. (2020 Trump Executive Order)
In 2023, President Biden issued Executive Order 14110, emphasizing responsible AI development and mandating new safety evaluations. (2023 Biden Executive Order)
In 2025, President Trump rescinded President Biden’s 2023 Executive Order and issued “America’s AI Action Plan,” which is aimed at ensuring American global domination in AI by cutting regulations and expanding AI infrastructure. (2025 Trump AI Action Plan)
The Brookings Institute reports that AI use in the federal government finally started to pick up in 2025; however, use appears to be concentrated among a small group of large federal agencies. Examples of AI use in the federal government include supporting law enforcement efforts, improving service delivery, processing government benefits, and facilitating medical services. While there has been some progress, change is slow. Brookings attributes the government’s slow adoption of AI to “[w]orkforce capacity constraints, a risk-averse culture, procurement and funding challenges, and low public trust in AI systems.” (Brookings Article, “Assessing the State of AI Adoption Across the Federal Government”) One major hindrance is the lack of AI and AI-enabling talent in government – hiring is slow and the pay is not great compared to the private sector. Brookings also reports that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts in early 2025 actually hindered AI adoption despite their mandate to increase government efficiency - “DOGE’s full-court press into the executive branch depleted technical capacity, further entrenched a risk-averse culture that rewards the status quo over responsible experimentation, and fostered mistrust toward future data-sharing initiatives.” (Brookings Article, “How DOGE Modernization Mission May Have Inadvertently Undermined Federal AI Adoption”)
The Double-Edged Sword.
Silicon Valley is hardly the federal bureaucracy, but could recent tech layoffs be a sign of things to come for federal employees?
Despite AI’s slow adoption, I suspect many federal employees see AI as a threat, and it is hard not to feel threatened after the year that they have had. Every request for information (which might be used to advance AI initiatives) is met with skepticism and fear. For example, this month, OPM is deploying the Federal Workforce Competency Initiative (FWCI) Survey which asks federal employees about the skills they need to do their job. (OPM’s April 2026 Memo) OPM says they will use this information for job analysis and to inform future hiring assessments. FWCI was launched in 2021 to update governmentwide competency models, and surveys were previously deployed in 2021 and 2024. But, this year, many employees are afraid to answer because they fear their answers could be used to justify a RIF or to train AI to take over their jobs.
At the same time, the current Administration is putting policies in place to make it easier to dismiss federal workers. Probationary and trial employees must now be certified by their agency for continued employment, and the reasons that managers may use to terminate them has been expanded. (2025 Probationary Period Executive Order) Tens of thousands federal employees are expected to transition to Schedule Policy/Career, which will convert them to “at-will” employees. (2025 Schedule Policy/Career Executive Order) OPM also issued guidance to managers to streamline removal processes, encouraging managers to use 5 USC Chapter 75 for removals based on poor performance (which allows managers to avoid putting employees on Performance Improvement Plans). (OPM’s June 2025 Memo) Some agencies are even imposing strict timelines on human resources staff to respond to managers’ inquiries about poor performance in order to fast track removals. (DoW’s September 2025 Memo) If a wave of AI-related reductions is in the future, the government seems to have positioned itself well.
While the fear is real, the government has more work to do before they can replace you with a robot. AI has the potential to significantly improve the way that government does business, but change comes slow in the public sector. In my last federal job, I had just started to dabble in the ways that AI could improve my work product and processes. (This was in large part due to the limited systems that I could access on my government computer.) Since leaving government service, I have had more opportunity to experiment with AI tools in my daily life and the potential is huge. For example, AI has the potential to help organizations that were decimated by DRP. Abrupt DRP departures left critical holes across the government. Agencies had little to no heads up, and no time to plan for these departures. Also, requirements were not taken away – just the people – and, in many cases, those requirements increased. This is exactly where AI could enter the conversation and help you get your head above water. My own office was hit hard by DRP last year, and we needed all the help we could get. One of my former co-workers joked – “if OPM is creating HR robots, I wish they would hurry up.” Unfortunately, the robots never came.
So, what do you do? If you resist AI, will you be left in the dust? If you embrace AI, are you a traitor? I think most federal workers can find a middle ground. The reluctance to embrace the new and unknown is understandable, but change is inevitable. Educate yourself and position yourself to best serve the public interest and to keep fighting the good fight. Do not become the victim of your circumstances – make the change work for you.
