Secret Service is embedding AI experts across the agency
In an interview with Nextgov/FCW, Chief Information Officer and Chief AI Officer Chris Kraft said the agency is undertaking a new program to embed AI specialists across its operations who can help turbocharge adoption of the tools.
Kraft said the initiative is essentially “a small group of AI experts that can bring expertise internal to the Secret Service, and then focus on our AI initiatives across the organization,” adding that “I think that there's a lot of value in having experts as federal employees, instead of just contracting for that capability.”
He teased out the hiring push in a LinkedIn post at the end of February, in which he shared a job posting from the Secret Service and said, “we’re building a new #AI program at the U.S. Secret Service.”
Kraft was formally appointed to the CIO role in December, after having served in the position in an acting capacity. Prior to joining the Secret Service, he served as DHS’ acting CTO and, before that, as that agency’s deputy CTO for AI and emerging technology.
While he was at DHS, he helped establish an AI Corps to bring AI experts into the agency to help personnel better leverage those capabilities. The Secret Service’s new AI program mirrors much of what DHS sought to accomplish with its own initiative.
Kraft said his experience working on both the technical and operational sides of agencies has shown him the importance of proving what AI is capable of — including whether or not the answer is the emerging capabilities or other technology.
“When you've got those deep technical experts that can focus on AI and other areas, I think it can be really transformative to increase your capabilities across the board,” he said. "And whether that's revisiting how you handle specific applications of technology or looking at implementing new capabilities, and then bring in that AI and data sciences perspective to help support large-scale operations.”
The Secret Service has already deployed some AI uses, including a tool to decipher license plates from poor-quality videos and photos. It has also been working with other agencies to leverage facial recognition technology.
Kraft said expanded uses of AI across the agency can further support agents and back-office operations.
“There’s so much information and data coming at people that it’s hard, in some cases, to absorb all that, and if artificial intelligence can help you absorb that vast amount of information and highlight what those things are that people should be looking at, I think that that’s a huge win,” he said.
While agencies have been steadily increasing their uses of AI over the past several years, adversaries and bad actors have also been leveraging the capabilities. Kraft said careful agency adoption of AI — with a human in the loop, workforce training and effective deployment — can help the Secret Service fully harness these tools. And that’s where he believes the AI program and hiring push can have a large impact on agency operations.
“I think having this internal team will really help us transform our [AI] adoption across the organization,” Kraft said.
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