US House of Representatives reverses AI ban: Staffers will have access to Microsoft Copilot

During the annual US Congressional Hackathon on Wednesday, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Microsoft 365 Copilot, integrated with OneDrive and Outlook, will be made available to staffers, reversing last year’s decision to prohibit its use.

Over the next year, up to 6,000 staffers will receive licenses to use the product, Axios reported Wednesday. This, said an emailed notice from Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor to House staff that was provided to Computerworld, “[will allow] the House to better serve constituents and streamline workflows.”

It added, “in addition, all House offices will have access to Copilot Chat, a lighter-weight version that does not have direct access to office data but does provide heightened legal and data protections.” 

Technical staff began testing the products in June, and early adopters and leadership staff will receive access over the next few months.

Copilot isn’t the only AI product under consideration, according to the notice. It said, “We are reviewing the recent $1 annual offers from major AI companies to the federal government that are applicable to Congress.” With that in mind, the CAO is looking at these short-term offers and determining how the enterprise versions of the platforms can be tested over the next year.

These initiatives build on two years of work which included what the notice called “thorough reviews and authorizations for most major AI tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Apple Intelligence, Copilot, Adobe Cloud, and more,” as well as the launch of the House AI Expo in July of this year that brought in more than 15 vendors and speakers.

Further details about the rollout will be released “in the coming months.”

“This is an important moment in the history of this institution, and evidence that we mean it when we say that the US can and must win the AI race,” Johnson said, noting that AI is a way to “unlock extraordinary savings for the government if we do it right, and add to Congress’s capacity to better serve the American people.”