The federal agency that has asked government workers to document five things they accomplished over the past week has officially ended the practice, which was initiated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, CBS News reported.
Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, said in a statement that the office communicated with human resources leads at federal agencies that it would no longer “manage the five things process nor utilize it internally.”
“At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so,” Kupor said.
In February, federal workers received an email instructing them to document five things they accomplished in the past week, while Musk, who at the time helmed the Department of Government Efficiency, said those who didn’t reply would risk losing their jobs.
The emails were part of an initiative to cut down the size of the federal civilian workforce. But multiple agencies told workers to ignore the request from the start, and OPM told agency heads to use their discretion when determining how they would handle the directive.
The Hill reported: Artificial intelligence (AI) models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic have been added to a government purchasing system, allowing federal agencies to buy and use the AI products.
The General Services Administration (GSA) announced Tuesday that ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude had been added to the agency’s Multiple Award Schedule for purchase.
“By making these cutting-edge AI solutions available to federal agencies, we’re leveraging the private sector’s innovation to transform every facet of government operations,’ he continued.
This follows the addition of xAI’s Grok to the GSA schedule, which it announced last month after unveiling a new suit of products for U.S. government customers and scoring a Pentagon contract alongside three other tech firms.
RTE reported: OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude have been added to a list of approved AI vendors, the US government’s central purchasing arm said in Tuesday, as the Trump administration aims to boost AI’s use by federal agencies.
Tuesday’s approvals by the General Services Administration are part of a new AI blueprint released on July 23 that aim to loosen environmental rules and vastly expanded AI exports to allies, in a bid to maintain the US edge over China in the technology.
The GSA’s step means that the approved AI tools will be available for government agencies to use on a platform with contract terms in place.
Federal agencies will explore “a wide range of AI solutions, from simple research assistants powered by large languages models to highly tailored, mission-specific applications,” the GSA said.