“This initiative aligns with our commitment to leverage innovative technology to improve efficiency, support our mission and provide a secured way to use GenAI,” read a Wednesday email to staff announcing the new “Agency Support Companion.”
SSA is the latest to debut such a tool for employees, following similar efforts at the State Department and General Services Administration.
SSA told staff that the new chatbot is meant to help with content creation and summarization, as well as research and coding assistance. Staff have to watch a four-minute video with guidelines and best practices to access it.
The new tool uses an OpenAI model and wasn’t trained or fine-tuned on any SSA data, according to an agency FAQ document obtained by Nextgov/FCW. No testing was done internally to assess the application against SSA-specific questions, it said.
The chatbot was trained on data up to October 2023, according to the FAQ, which also warned that employees should validate its responses and not feed it personally identifiable information.
The tool “is not configured to learn from user interactions” and isn’t connected to other agency applications, but all content will be logged and viewable by the app’s administrators, the FAQ said.
“There are significant opportunities with AI,” said Jack Smalligan, a senior policy fellow at the Urban Institute who previously served as the deputy associate director at the Office of Management and Budget. Smalligan is a co-lead on a new repo ..
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