US House to Offer Microsoft Copilot to Members and Staffers

The House of Representatives will reportedly start using Microsoft Copilot, more than a year after banning congressional staffers from using the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.

Now, both members and staffers will have access to Copilot with “heightened legal and data protection,” Axios reported Wednesday (Sept. 17), citing an announcement it received.

According to the report, a limited number of staff in each office will have access to the Copilot, with the rollout beginning this month and continuing through November, and as many as 6,000 licenses will be made available for a year.

The House is evaluating other products as well, including ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude Enterprise, Gemini Enterprise, USAi and others, per the report.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in the announcement, per the report, that the House has been “tracking developments with AI closely” and is now prepared to deploy the technology.

“And here’s why it matters: AI tools don’t just make us faster or smarter,” Johnson said, per the report. “They unlock extraordinary savings for the government and add to Congress’ capacity to better serve the American people.”

Axios reported in March 2024 that the House had banned congressional staffers from using Microsoft Copilot.

It was reported in April that Microsoft accounts for about 31% of the amount 24 federal agencies spend on software licenses.

Several other companies have been working to have their AI models adopted by one or more of the branches of the federal government.

On July 14, xAI announced the launch of Grok for Government, saying this suite of frontier AI products would initially be available to U.S. government customers and then to local and state ones.

OpenAI said in an Aug. 6 blog post that it partnered with the General Services Administration to give federal agencies access to ChatGPT Enterprise for $1 for the next year.

Anthropic said on Aug. 12 that it would offer Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government to all three branches of the government for $1 per agency for one year.

Google said on Aug. 21 that it would be offering Gemini for Government to federal agencies and employees for 47 cents for the first year.