The General Services Administration (GSA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched a collaborative effort today to test and measure artificial intelligence (AI) systems to speed AI deployment and adoption across the federal government.
NIST’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) will provide tools and guidance to support GSA’s evaluation of advanced AI models before integrating them into federal workflows, GSA said in an announcement.
That effort will center on GSA’s USAi, a secure cloud-based AI evaluation platform that lets government agencies test and use tools like chat AI, code generation, and document summarization to accelerate scalable AI adoption.
CAISI will select and interpret benchmarks, conduct hands-on testing within real federal workflows, and develop resources such as clear evaluation guidelines and checklists with GSA that other agencies can use to assess their own AI tools, GSA said.
“The goal is simple: help agencies adopt AI faster, more securely, and with greater confidence,” GSA said.
According to the agency, the partnership aligns with the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan, which emphasized CAISI’s role in developing stronger AI evaluation practices.
“This partnership gives agencies the tools they need to adopt AI with confidence and advances President Trump’s vision for U.S. leadership in the global AI race,” said GSA Administrator Edward Forst. “By combining GSA’s government-wide reach with NIST’s AI evaluation expertise, we’re strengthening how the federal government deploys AI.”
Craig Burkhardt, deputy under secretary of commerce for standards and technology and acting NIST director, added that “We’re at a pivotal time in the AI revolution and this partnership between CAISI and GSA will enable federal agencies to adopt AI in ways that help the American people.”
GSA said the partnership will also help avoid duplicating efforts, lower costs, and accelerate the timeline between experimentation and deployment.
The announcement follows White House calls for NIST to refocus its AI role on core standards-setting and measurement science. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios last summer said the agency should prioritize developing “best in class standards” and a common framework for evaluating AI systems, while leaving sector-specific metrics to industry.