It’s not R&D if you’re running it like production

It’s not R&D if you’re running it like production

In the race to modernize government operations with artificial intelligence, a troubling trend has emerged: Federal agencies are increasingly labeling internally developed tools as “research and development” to sidestep critical procurement requirements. While these tools are dressed up as experiments, many are quietly scaled and treated like production systems — onboarding users, influencing operations and consuming taxpayer dollars. This pract…