The Federal Chief Information Officers Council asked FedRAMP to place certain Artificial Intelligence cloud services at the front of the security certification line. In an August 12 letter the council requested priority review for cloud services that provide access to conversational Artificial Intelligence engines designed for routine and repeated use by federal workers. FedRAMP will apply a new prioritization that evaluates products against five specific criteria before granting that expedited handling.
One of the stated criteria requires either demand from at least five CFO Act agencies or an explicit recommendation from the CIO Council. Additional requirements include enterprise-grade features such as single sign-on, system for cross-domain identity management provisioning, role-based access control and real-time analytics. Vendors must guarantee data separation and protection so that any model information derived from training on customer data does not leave the customer environment without authorization. Products must be available for government purchase through the GSA Multiple Award Schedule and be capable of meeting the requirements for a FedRAMP 20x authorization within two months of being accepted for prioritization.
Officials framed the move as part of a broader push to accelerate adoption of Artificial Intelligence across government. Thomas Shedd, director of the technology transformation services and deputy commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the general services administration, said the approach is intended to provide agencies with authorized, vetted technologies. Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum tied the action to delivering on President Trump’s AI Action Plan and said prioritizing FedRAMP reviews is critical to deploying trusted tools that streamline operations.
FedRAMP’s program office said no cloud services currently meet all five criteria. The decision follows recent GSA schedule contracts awarded to three commercial Artificial Intelligence providers in the last few weeks and references Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. Of those, only Gemini has a FedRAMP authorization through a workstation offering, and Claude is listed as available for government use through Palantir. The article notes prior FedRAMP efforts to prioritize generative Artificial Intelligence tools in June 2024 and says that program was later canceled in January after an executive order was rescinded.
