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The Department of Health and Human Services is working to centralize common IT procurement across the department by October 2027, with the Office of Mission Acquisition Solutions aiming to consolidate requirements currently spread across roughly 30 CIOs. Office of Mission Acquisition Solutions (OMAS) Executive Director Quentin McCoy said the effort is intended to deliver better value for taxpayers, shorten acquisition timelines and provide a unified view of HHS' IT environment. HHS is also using existing acquisition authorities and engaging directly with vendors to access AI and other emerging technologies more quickly. McCoy said the department is seeking additional tools, including Commercial Solutions Opening authority, and expanding market research to keep pace with emerging technology. He added that industry partnerships will be central to the effort, with HHS looking to vendors to bring forward ideas and engage directly with acquisition officials.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has spent the past several years building the governance, infrastructure and workforce needed to scale artificial intelligence across the nation's largest integrated health care system. Now, VA is increasingly focused on turning that foundation into practical applications that improve care and services for veterans. Acting Chief AI Officer Kimberly McManus discussed how VA's AI strategy has evolved and how the agency is measuring its impact. This includes a 22% decrease in opioid overdose mortality and general-purpose tools that employees say save them six hours per week. McManus also outlined how VA is measuring AI's impact on quality of care, access to care, turnaround times and employee productivity.

The federal government is modernizing electronic health records to give clinicians more seamless access to patient data across agencies and improve the delivery of care. Lance Scott, CTO for the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization Office (FEHRM), discussed how the office is coordinating technology efforts across agencies to improve interoperability and standardize health information sharing. Scott explored the state of EHR modernization across the government, including ongoing efforts with the Departments of Veterans Affairs and War. He also discusses how FEHRM is working with additional federal organizations to expand the shared EHR ecosystem and improve the exchange of health information across the government.

Jamie Holcombe, COO of Electrosoft and former CIO of the Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), shared his leadership insights on how culture is built and discussed how speed without culture leads to burnout and broken trust. He explained the importance of connecting every team member's work to the mission and that without understanding the "why," people become disengaged and innovation suffers. Addressing the human cost of cyber work, Holcombe highlighted the need for leaders to recognize signs of fatigue and loss of purpose. He urged leaders to prioritize wellness, trust and mission clarity. His message is that culture is the steel inside the system. Build trust before crisis, explain the mission before tasks and care for people before they break. "People are our most critical infrastructure," he said.

Federal agencies can make the authorization to operate (ATO) process more efficient by treating security as an ongoing part of software development rather than a checklist to complete before deployment, according to Victoria Yan Pillitteri, cybersecurity lead at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Speaking with GovCIO Media & Research at the Carahsoft DevSecOps Conference, Pillitteri outlined common misconceptions that can slow the ATO process, including treating authorization as a one-time compliance exercise or simply a hurdle to clear for approval. Pillitteri explained how NIST guidance gives agencies flexibility to tailor the ATO process to their specific missions, systems and risk tolerances rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. She also discusses how clearly defining roles and responsibilities, strengthening risk management practices and building security into software development from the beginning can help agencies streamline authorization while deploying software more efficiently and securely.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Director John Sarrao discussed how artificial intelligence and large-scale computing are changing the way scientific research is conducted across the national laboratory system. Sarrao explained how SLAC's massive scientific data streams are contributing to the Genesis Mission's push to accelerate scientific discovery with AI. He also highlighted SLAC's use of a multi-agent AI framework to explore more efficient ways to recover critical minerals from battery waste and identify more sustainable materials. Sarrao also discussed how collaboration across national labs, federal agencies, universities and industry can bring together specialized data, tools and AI models. He explained why that broader ecosystem is a strategic advantage for the Genesis Mission and how research teams beyond the mission's initially funded projects can contribute to its goals.

Federal agencies risk falling behind the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence unless they rethink how they buy technology, according to Anil Chaudhry, senior advisor of AI, Autonomy and National Security at the Transportation Department. Chaudhry discussed how agentic AI is accelerating application development, testing and deployment while rapid advances in AI models are challenging traditional multiyear IT contracts. He points to modular contracting, with requirements broken into shorter increments, as one way agencies can better align procurement with the pace of technological change. Chaudhry also examined how AI is reshaping the acquisition process itself, from enabling contractors to respond to more solicitations to helping agencies conduct administrative reviews. Rather than imposing a governmentwide ceiling on AI use in procurement, he argued agencies should tailor their approaches to their missions while following a straightforward principle: disclose when AI is used. He also discussed the emerging challenge of pricing AI-enabled work as agencies compare traditional labor-intensive teams with approaches that rely more heavily on AI agents.

The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) is expanding its DevSecOps research to explore how artificial intelligence can support software development and security workflows. Michael Ogata, a computer scientist at NIST, discussed how AI and large language models are being applied to coding, testing, security evaluation and vulnerability remediation. He also outlined NIST's emerging focus on agentic AI, including how organizations can establish identities and credentials for AI agents, authorize their actions and ensure those actions remain traceable to accountable human users.

The Coast Guard is modernizing how it develops applications to support its missions. The service's new Software Yard is designed to accelerate secure software development, incorporate DevSecOps and use low-code/no-code platforms to respond more quickly to emerging operational needs. Capt. Patrick Thompson, technical director of infrastructure at the Coast Guard, discussed how the Software Yard is changing application development, including efforts that have taken apps from concept to deployment in as little as three weeks. He also explained how faster development cycles are changing cybersecurity requirements, creating opportunities for AI-enabled security tools and driving the need to retool the Coast Guard's technology workforce.

The Navy is making AI and data central to how it operates, with a new strategy focused on faster decision-making and scaling what works. Department of the Navy CTO Justin Fanelli discussed the service's push toward an AI-first maritime force, how officials are evaluating AI projects based on return on investment and mission impact, and why the "make versus buy" mindset is becoming increasingly important in software development. He also shared how the Navy is organizing technology portfolios, moving capabilities from pilot to production faster and building a software-defined fleet that can adapt to changing mission needs.

Former CIA Chief Wellbeing Officer Jennifer Posa discussed why workforce wellbeing is a strategic driver of mission success. She drew on her experience building the CIA's first agency-wide wellbeing strategy to explain why leaders should focus on creating "readiness," not just resilience, to help employees perform in high-pressure, unpredictable environments.  She outlined the four pillars of readiness, purpose, security, strength and culture, and shared practical strategies organizations can use to improve performance, strengthen leadership and build healthier, more resilient teams in an era of constant change.

Government software development pipelines are increasingly integrating AI coding assistants, but Air Force Sustainment Center Software Directorate CTO Kurt Jarvis said success depends on improving how developers use existing code, not just generating new code faster. Speaking with GovCIO Media & Research at the Carahsoft DevSecOps Conference, Jarvis outlined an engineer-first approach that uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), vector databases and established DevSecOps pipelines to safely accelerate software development. Jarvis said one of the biggest opportunities for AI is helping developers discover and reuse decades of trusted software already maintained by the Air Force. The goal, he said, is to make AI a code‑reuse engine, not a code‑generation machine. He also emphasized that AI has not changed the Air Force's software engineering standards. Existing CI/CD pipelines are still the foundation for evaluating AI-generated code. AI can accelerate development, Jarvis said, but engineering discipline and human oversight remain essential to producing mission-ready software.

Army Acting CIO Gabe Chiulli discussed an upcoming DevSecOps initiative that aims to improve sharing and securing code with industry partners. In what Chiulli dubbed "Project Gatekeeper," the effort aims to streamline industry access, enable rapid code evaluation using AI and incentivize partners by offering quicker deployment authorizations. Drawing from prior roles, most recently as CTO in the Army's Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, Chiulli highlighted the challenges the service is facing with increased vulnerabilities due to AI and the importance of streamlining collaboration with industry to better secure systems and remediate threats. He shared how he sees partnership across the military branches and the importance of enabling code to be deployed across multiple platforms, including proper logging and security controls. He said his priority areas at the Army center around rapid modernization and improved contracting processes to optimize infrastructure and systems across operations.

Six months after War Secretary Pete Hegseth directed sweeping acquisition reforms across the department, the Defense Information Systems Agency is accelerating its transition from government-developed cybersecurity tools to commercial technologies. On this episode of CyberCast, Brian Hermann, director of PAE Cyber at DISA, discussed how the agency is modernizing its cyber acquisition strategy by prioritizing commercial solutions, software-as-a-service offerings and more flexible contracting approaches. Hermann explained why DISA believes commercial technologies can deliver capabilities faster, reduce operational risk and better keep pace with evolving cyber threats. The conversation also explored how DISA is breaking down budget silos and consolidating resources to give portfolio leaders greater flexibility to adopt new technologies and retire legacy systems more quickly. As the department's acquisition transformation takes shape, Hermann outlines DISA's evolving role as an integrator of commercial capabilities — ensuring interoperability and mission effectiveness across contested, coalition and edge environments.

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape government technology, National Endowment for the Arts CIO and Chief AI Officer Jim Tunnessen said the technology has significant potential to accelerate modernization, streamline software development and improve operational efficiency. Tunnessen pointed to AI-assisted development as a fundamental shift in how agencies build applications, enabling smaller teams to deliver capabilities faster than through traditional development methods. He said agencies must balance those gains with strong governance, transparency and cybersecurity guardrails. At the NEA, Tunnessen views AI as a tool for enhancing back-office operations while ensuring human judgment remains central to evaluating artistic work.