US government agency to use AI to increase ‘efficiency’ of jobs as it cuts staff by one-third

The United States Office of Public Management has revealed plans to use AI to increase the efficiency of jobs in its quest to downsize the US government. Scott Kupor, the agencys new director, told reporters on Monday, July 21, that he has a Silicon Valley mentality when it comes to motivating employees and maximizing performance, and is looking to integrate AI into some of the agencys tasks. I view AI as probably the most significant disinflationary technology that I think we have seen yet today, Kupor told The Post in a meeting with reporters. What I mean by that is basically AI, however, you deploy it, its not gonna replace everybodys jobs, but I think AI can massively increase the efficiency of a lot of jobs, and certainly, as we know, itll probably create new job opportunities as well. While AI wont be used to cut jobs outright, the agency has been working to drastically downsize its number of employees. OPM is on track to cut one-third of its staff by Dec. 31, largely through voluntary departures, from 3,110 employees to around 2,000. The number of contractors used by OPM is also set to be slashed from 1,200 to about 600, the agency said. Kupor mentioned customer service and information combing  like going through the tens of thousands of comments the agency gets  as some of the tasks potentially fit for artificial technology. Kupor said its hard to imagine that in a few years we wont be able to significantly increase the efficiency of the comment reading process by at least having some of that summarization, some of the kind of information gathering, information dissemination being enhanced by AI. As the agencys new head, he said he wants OPM employees to be prepared for work in an AI forward way as President Trump has made clear he wants the US to be the global leader in AI innovation. I think its a good bet that the types of jobs that we will need five or 10 years from now will be different. The types of skills we will need will be different. And Id like to make sure that as we think about the recruitment and talent pipeline for government, he said. The post US government agency to use AI to increase efficiency of jobs as it cuts staffbyone-third appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.