The General Services Administration is planning to use artificial intelligence to automate a significant portion of its internal work, after losing nearly 40% of its total workforce under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
GSA Deputy Director Michael Lynch said at an industry conference Tuesday that GSA has launched a \u201cmillion hours challenge\u201d for its internal AI tool USAi to automate a portion of the work done by federal employees and contractors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have about 400,000 hours that are currently identified in ways that we could not replace people, but remove that non-high-value-added time and replace it by putting people on more high-value opportunities within the agency,\u201d Lynch said at the OpenText Government Summit on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
GSA is nearly halfway to its goal, and began this work internally. But Lynch said the project could expand outside GSA if deemed successful.<\/p>\n
]]><\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to start with ourselves and expand as we go forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Several other agencies<\/a> that saw deep staffing cuts last year, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the IRS, have also announced plans to rebuild capacity through AI. The Trump administration proposed further staffing cuts to the IRS in its budget proposal for fiscal 2027,<\/a> but suggested those cuts could be offset by \u201cutilizing technology improvements to help focus the IRS on providing high-quality customer service while ensuring the tax laws are fairly administered.\u201d<\/p>\n For context, a million work hours translates into roughly a year of 500 employees working standard eight-hour workdays.<\/p>\n During Tuesday\u2019s keynote, Lynch said GSA is following an \u201cEOA\u201d playbook for this work, which stands for \u201celiminate, optimize and automate.\u201d<\/p>\n Since October 2024, GSA has lost nearly 40% of its total workforce. As part of last year\u2019s cuts, GSA eliminated its digital services agency 18F. In a class-action appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board last year, former 18F employees claimed they were fired after being targeted by former Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Before joining GSA last year,<\/a> Lynch served as an executive at several private-sector companies, including Musk\u2019s aerospace and AI company SpaceX.<\/p>\n \u201cGSA, like most parts of the federal government, is reduced in size from where we were at the start of the administration. So we\u2019re now looking at everything we do to say, \u2018Where are there areas where we can be more efficient and better use technology to go faster?\u2019\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Lynch said that a small cohort of GSA employees is helping the agency\u2019s leadership identify ways to automate and modernize internal work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did a call-to-action for all of our senior leaders to say, \u2018What are the problems that exist within automation, technology, workforce, things that you want to dedicate resources to, [but] you just don\u2019t have the staff to do it?\u2019 And then we put out a call to our workforce to say, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re kind of mid-career talent. Would you be interested in doing a second job, in addition to your day job?\u2019 Not a second paid job, but you\u2019ll be part of this programming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n According to Lynch, about 300 GSA employees applied to join GSA Labs. The first cohort of about 30 employees, he added, is doing this work \u201clargely internally right now,\u201d but could scale up beyond GSA.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have 30 individuals from around GSA that are going to be kind of almost our internal McKinsey consulting group that\u2019s going to come in and help us solve those problems in partnership with the leaders,\u201d he said. \u201cThen the hope would be that it further develops the workforce, further develops great outcomes for our agency. And then where the program goes in year two and beyond is a bit up in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynch said GSA leaders identified 17 problems for GSA Labs to tackle, but narrowed the list down to five focus areas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt creates exposure to all aspects of our mission and what GSA does. It\u2019s helping our talent, and I think it\u2019s helping to solve real meaningful problems across the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Early in the Trump administration, GSA was a hotbed of DOGE activity and sought to cut its governmentwide real estate portfolio in half.<\/a> Under new leadership, GSA is still looking to dispose of underutilized federal buildings.<\/p>\n But the Government Accountability Office<\/a> recently reported that deep staffing cuts at GSA\u2019s Public Buildings Service have \u201ccreated challenges in accessing and preparing properties for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n According to GAO, PBS lost about 45% of its employees between September 2024 and November 2025.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Agency officials told GAO that they would not provide timely access or allow tours of a property being sold, because it no longer had staff in the area. In another case, a property sale stalled because the team managing the sale left GSA, and the remaining staff were unsure if steps to help an agency tenant relocate had been completed. As a result, GSA had to restart the disposal process for the property.<\/p>\n GSA officials also told GAO that about a third of the staff responsible for processing disposals of GSA-owned properties left the agency, \u201ccreating uncertainty on whether properties were properly vetted and approved to begin the process.\u201d<\/p>\n PBS recently told staff that it\u2019s looking to hire 400 employees over the next six months. Last fall, Federal News Network first reported<\/a> that PBS offered another 400 laid-off employees the opportunity to come back to their jobs.<\/p>\n