The federal government will soon incorporate artificial intelligence into the interview process for some job applicants. According to U.S. officials, AI will not be used by all federal agencies immediately. The initial testing phase is set for the ‘Tech Force’ initiative, which began eight months ago to bring private-sector tech experts into two-year government roles.
A platform called CodeSignal will be tested with this applicant pool, one official confirmed. With approximately 1.9 million employees, the federal government has lagged behind private companies in deploying AI as a preliminary screening tool for high-application positions. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued guidance urging the adoption of AI, with a strong recommendation for human oversight in critical hiring decisions. Earlier this year, OPM unveiled a tool using AI for generating job descriptions.
While OPM spokespeople have not provided immediate comments, Director Scott Kupor is promoting faster federal hiring processes. He encourages agency leaders to prioritize hiring early-career professionals for one-third of new positions to counterbalance the aging workforce. AI tools, including Microsoft’s Copilot, Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini, are already accessible to administrative personnel on government computers.
In the Tech Force pilot program, structured AI-driven interviews with standardized questions will be conducted. AI agents will record and summarize audio from these interviews, which hiring managers can later review and assess. CodeSignal’s AI tools, designed for the early stages of applicant screening, provide interviews via virtual AI agents and various communication formats, such as phone and text. Transcriptions are provided to hiring managers for candidate evaluation.
Several officials forecast that AI will become a standard component of federal interviews in the coming years.