The Daily Scoop Podcast

The VA extends its EHR contract with Oracle Cerner for another 11 months. And, a scathing Senate report on regulating hedge funds’ use of AI.

There’s a pair of new bipartisan Senate bills out this week that looks to foster responsible AI adoption in two key areas: federal acquisition and small businesses.

GSA takes new steps to secure the software acquisition process And, the White House goes against the idea of an Army Drone Corps

The Department of Veterans Affairs, like many federal agencies, is facing a tightening budget landscape. Because of that, resources to support modernization and emerging tech adoption can be hard to come by. FedScoop reporter Caroline Nihill spoke recently with Charles Worthington, the dual-hatted chief technology officer and chief AI officer for the VA. During their wide-ranging discussion, they touch on the VA’s AI adoption, the constrained budget environment, infrastructure challenges, and much more.

Today on The Daily Scoop Podcast… from The Scoop News Group. Pentagon CIO John Sherman is leaving government And, Microsoft rolls back a highly criticized AI security tool. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.

IRS’s Direct File is on the chopping block in a 2025 appropriations bill and the FBI obtains 7,000 LockBit ransomware decryption keys.

House Republicans want to slash funds for election security. And, the Army is in line to get a new network chief.

Today on the Daily Scoop Podcast from the Scoop News Group, How the VA is wrestling with digital transformation amid an austere budget environment. And the DIU looks to get another big funding boost in 2025.

As federal agencies move full-scale to adopt artificial intelligence technologies in coordination with the 2023 Biden administration AI executive order, it might seem that more secretive intelligence agencies like the CIA would be less forthcoming about their work in the space. Sure, there are some things the agency can’t share and certain requirements that must be met to work with commercial products due to classification restrictions. But the CIA is doing quite a lot in AI, and Lakshmi Raman, the director of AI for the agency, was willing to give a wide-ranging interview looking at the CIA’s journey to adopt AI — from the use cases the CIA is most excited about for AI to the workforce concerns and unique governance challenges the agency faces, and much more. Let’s shift now to that interview with Lakshmi Raman, CIA’s director of AI.

Senator Joni Ernst seeks information about SBA'sS artificial intelligence use cases and IT work and a House Republican sounds the alarm on cyber threats to the food and agriculture sector.

IRS makes direct file permanent and union workers say a commerce department agency is on the brink of collapse amid a telework dispute.

The Army has awarded Palantir a $480 million deal to support its Maven Smart System prototype, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. The U.S. military has recently been using this type of artificial intelligence technology in the Central Command area of responsibility in the Middle East. The Maven Smart System uses AI generated algorithms and memory learning capabilities to scan and identify enemy systems in the Area of Responsibility, fusing data from various Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) systems to identify areas of interest. The Pentagon wants to use artificial intelligence tools like Maven to enable its Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control warfighting construct, which aims to better connect the platforms, sensors and data streams of the U.S. military and key international partners under a more unified network. Defense officials intend to leverage AI to help commanders and other personnel make faster and better decisions and improve operational effectiveness and efficiency. The company was recently awarded another AI-related deal by the Army for the next phase of the service’s TITAN ground station program, which aims to provide soldiers with next-generation data fusion and deep-sensing capabilities via artificial intelligence and other tools. That other transaction agreement was worth $178 million.

Today on the Daily Scoop podcast from the Scoop News group, OPM's chief pushes for telework flexibilities for the cyber workforce and inside the army tool used to support Biden's AI executive order.

GSA teases a new open source tool for federal CX efforts and the FCC pushes new disclosure requirements for A I in political ads.

Gen. Jim Mattis, the former secretary of defense during the start of the Trump administration, made a special appearance Wednesday at DefenseTalks. And while he touched on a number of things, from leadership to politics and the military’s adoption of emerging technology, he made some pretty critical comments about the state of the nation amid the upcoming election and its vulnerability to influence operations from key adversaries like Russia and China. Mattis said that while election systems and voting infrastructure are perhaps the most secure they’ve ever been against cyberattacks, the bigger problem is influence operations, calling the U.S. the most vulnerable he’s ever seen it in his lifetime to foreign influence and a lucrative target. During the on-stage interview, Mattis also touched on the nation’s cyber defenses, throwing water on the idea from some to form an independent U.S. military cyber service for foreign operations. However, he did call for a new model to protect the homeland’s critical infrastructure from cyber attacks, namely by sharing some of the resources housed within the U.S. military and NSA with DHS in emergency scenarios. But, Mattis said because the military doesn’t have authority to issue orders over matters happening within the U.S. and its infrastructure, there would need to be a civilian law enforcement leader — he proposed the FBI — who would step in to lead response to a major cyberattack on the homeland.

The house passes a bill in support of the TMF and GSA appoints tech experts for a new fed ramp advisory group.

Earlier this month, the RSA Conference in San Francisco drew crowds of tens of thousands of cybersecurity experts and practitioners, including a huge cohort of cyber officials from the federal government. One of those was Bailey Bickley, the chief of defense industrial base cybersecurity at the NSA. I caught up with Bickley during some of her downtime at RSA to discuss the big takeaways from this year’s conference, as well as all of the work the NSA is doing to help bolster the security of defense contractors, particularly smaller ones that can’t always afford to secure themselves. From CMMC and the new DIB cyber strategy to the free services the NSA is providing to members of the DIB community, we cover it all. Now, let’s go to my conversation with Bailey Bickley.

NSF Funding Cuts Present a National Security Issue and new TMF investments boost agency projects and generative A I digital service delivery and accessibility.

Just recently, federal agencies met some of the key requirements set forth in the Biden administration’s AI executive order that were to be completed within the first 180 days, signaling strong momentum for the federal government establishing a strong foundation of AI development and responsible use. Nick Sinai, former U.S. deputy CTO during the Obama administration and now a senior adviser for the venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners, which focuses on investing in software firms, joins the Daily Scoop to discuss the momentum of the AI EO, a trip he took last year to U.S. Central Command in the Middle East and what he learned there, what federal officials should be thinking about with the election coming up, and much more.

The US and China are Meeting This Week to Talk AI Safety