OMB Issues Memorandum on Accelerating Federal Use of AI through Innovation, Governance, and Public Trust
Summary
On April 3, 2025, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies (M-25-21) on Accelerating Federal Use of AI through Innovation, Governance, and Public Trust, along with an accompanying Fact Sheet: Eliminating Barriers for Federal Artificial Intelligence Use and Procurement. The Memorandum issued from Executive Order 14179, which President Trump signed on January 23, 2025, directing the OMB Director to revise OMB Memorandum M-24-10 to make it consistent with the Order’s policy to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”
The Memorandum directs the agencies to accelerate federal use of AI by focusing on three priorities: innovation, governance, and public trust. Consistent with these priorities, the Memorandum directs the agencies to undertake the requirements described in the Appendix of the Memorandum. These requirements include the following:
- Agencies must remove barriers to innovation and provide the best value for the taxpayer, e.g., developing agency AI strategies, sharing agency data and AI assets, leveraging American AI and innovation, promoting effective federal procurement of AI, and enabling an AI-ready federal workforce.
- Agencies must empower AI leaders to accelerate responsible AI adoption, e.g., establishing a Chief AI Officer and AI governance board, developing compliance plans and AI policies, and coordinating the developing and use of AI across agencies by participating in the Chief AI Officer Council.
- Agencies must ensure their use of AI works for the American people, e.g., determining “high-impact” AI—i.e., AI whose “output serves as a principal basis for decisions or actions that have a legal, material, binding, or significant effect on rights or safety”—and implementing minimum risk management practices for high-impact AI.
