President Donald Trump’s case against the federal bureaucracy rests on a simple observation: It is slow, it is unaccountable, and it is nearly impossible to fire. Voters agreed. His administration’s answer has been to shrink it, speed it up, and, increasingly, automate it.

That diagnosis is right. The last part is happening faster than most people realize. In April 2025, the Office of Management and Budget directed every agency to accelerate its use of artificial intelligence and remove barriers that had slowed adoption. Agencies complied. As of April 13, 2026, the government’s own consolidated inventory lists 3,611 individually reported AI use cases across the executive branch, 1,818 of them deployed or in pilot, and 445 that agencies themselves classify as high-impact, meaning they can shape a decision with legal or material consequences for a citizen. The Department of Veterans Affairs reports 215 of those. The Justice Department reports 114. Homeland Security reports 55.