The Department of Labor (DOL) is launching a contract opportunity to embed artificial intelligence (AI) skills in Registered Apprenticeship (RA) programs to improve AI literacy and technical skills across sectors.
DOL said Wednesday it will award a single contract with a one-year base period and four option years to expand RA programs in AI-related areas and integrate AI education into other RA programs that span a broad range of industries.
According to DOL, the contractor will serve as a national intermediary and work with employers, industry associations, and workforce partners to:
- Develop AI-related curriculum and standards
- Support employers’ adoption and expansion of RA programs
- Provide technical and expert assistance, and
- Promote AI innovation and accelerate the adoption of AI training modules
“Registered Apprenticeships remain one of the nation’s most effective workforce development models, offering earn-while-you-learn opportunities that connect workers directly to good-paying jobs,” Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said in a statement. “With millions of new jobs projected in emerging sectors over the next decade, this initiative positions apprenticeships as a central strategy for meeting workforce demand.”
Advocates have touted RA programs as a pathway to the middle class by offering high wages and benefits without the debt of a college degree, and have historically used them to help fill cyber and IT-related roles in the federal government.
DOL’s contracting opportunity aligns with other efforts under the second Trump administration to prepare the future workforce for an AI-dominant world. Last spring, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the secretary of labor to expand AI-related RA programs.
And in January 2026, DOL announced a $145 million investment to expand RA programs. Under current orders from Trump, the DOL must fill more than 1 million active apprenticeships nationwide.
By embedding AI skills into existing RA programs and expanding AI-related programs, DOL said its new initiative aims to strengthen workforce pipelines in data centers, telecommunications, and advanced manufacturing. It will also include AI in roles that directly build, manage, or apply AI technologies.
“AI is transforming every industry, and our workforce systems must evolve just as quickly,” Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement. “This initiative will help ensure American workers are not merely participants in the AI economy but leading it.”
DOL said its effort to include more AI skills in RA programs aligns with another initiative dubbed “Make America AI-Ready,” which it launched last week to provide free AI classes to American workers.
Those courses provide a text-based AI literacy curriculum developed with the organization Arist that delivers bite-sized lessons via SMS to help workers build foundational AI skills in just seven days, according to DOL.
The department also partnered with the National Science Foundation and other agencies last week for a new initiative aimed at creating AI-focused hubs in every U.S. state and territory. That initiative aims in part to expand AI literacy and applied skills across the workforce and build hands-on learning pathways.