A top priority in the public sector has been cutting costs and identifying savings across the government through the identification and elimination of government waste.
There is good reason to scrutinize government budgets and spending more closely. According to an April 2024 report released by the Government Accountability Office, an independent, non-partisan agency that works for Congress, “No area of the federal government is immune to fraud. We estimated the federal government could lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud.”
Fraud and misuse can occur in any financial system or public program—and federal agencies are often tasked with catching it under tight timelines and limited resources. Thankfully, new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), can offer a faster, more scalable way to detect anomalies, flag high-risk activity, and protect taxpayer dollars through the elimination of government waste and fraudulent activity.
From Payment Cards to Safety Nets
Any program—from agency-issued travel cards to social services—can carry some risk of misuse. Historically, identifying fraud required time-consuming, manual reviews of receipts, applications, or transactions.
AI offers a more efficient, scalable approach. For example, in the case of government travel cards, agencies can run submitted travel receipts through AI models trained on known fraud patterns. These models automatically flag anomalies, enabling staff to focus on high-risk items rather than reviewing every transaction.
The same approach applies to other systems, like disability claims or Social Security applications. Once an AI model learns the patterns of potential fraud, such as repeated inconsistencies in documentation or unusual sequences of activity, it can screen new submissions and surface only the most concerning cases for deeper review.
Over time, these models continue to improve, helping agencies strengthen oversight and reduce undetected misuse at scale.
Efficiency is Essential for Understaffed Agencies
In an era of increasingly constrained budgets, government agencies are compelled to operate with greater efficiency, striving to deliver essential services with fewer resources. This shift requires a multi-faceted approach, often involving digital transformation to automate routine tasks, streamline workflows, and leverage data analytics for informed decision-making.
Agencies are also focusing on process optimization, eliminating redundancies, and fostering cross-agency collaboration to break down silos and maximize resource sharing. Furthermore, there’s an emphasis on performance management, setting clear goals, and tracking progress to ensure accountability and continuous improvement.
While the pressure to “do more with less” presents significant challenges, it also drives innovation in how public services are delivered, ultimately aiming for a more responsive and impactful government. AI-driven solutions can help agencies maintain oversight by triaging high volumes of activity, filtering out low-risk cases and surfacing potential threats, so limited staff can stay focused on the work that matters most.
The Role of AI in Strengthening Oversight and Resilience
As federal agencies face rising complexity and constrained resources, maintaining program integrity becomes even more challenging. AI offers a practical way to support oversight—triaging large volumes of data, reducing manual burden, and helping teams focus their expertise where it’s most needed.
It’s not about replacing staff—it’s about equipping them to do more with less, while preserving the trust and effectiveness that public programs depend on.
Learn more about the ways AI can increase efficiency across the government. Click here to download a copy of DataRobot’s “A Buyer’s Guide to AI in Government”
The author, William Zewe, is an Account Executive at DataRobot helping the United States Department of Defense build and deploy effective generative and predictive AI solutions.