OpenAI tailored ChatGPT Gov for government use – here's what that means

ChatGPT excels as a workplace assistant: The AI chatbot makes robust documents searchable, automates complex tasks, assists with writing and coding, and more. As a result, the US government should, in theory, be one of generative AI’s biggest beneficiaries  — and OpenAI thinks so, too. 

ChatGPT Gov

On Tuesday, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Gov, which, as the name implies, is a version of ChatGPT tailored to the specific requirements of federal agencies. ChatGPT Gov provides ChatGPT’s advanced assistance while upholding the government’s security and privacy protocols. 

In the blog post announcing the product, OpenAI noted the “enormous potential” for its AI tools to help the public sector address complex issues such as improving public health and strengthening national security, with the ultimate goal of “serving national interest and public good.” 

The capabilities to be offered as part of ChatGPT Gov are similar to those offered in ChatGPT Enterprise, including the ability to collaborate with others within their government workspace, upload text and image files, access GPT-4o, create custom GPTs, and access an administrative console for CIOs and IT teams to manage usage. 

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According to OpenAI, many government agencies already have been leveraging ChatGPT for their everyday workflows; to date, more than 90,000 users across more than 3,500 US federal, state, and local government agencies have sent more than 18 million ChatGPT messages. 

Access

To maximize security and control, government agencies can use Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI ⁠Service to deploy ChatGPT Gov within their environments, including Microsoft Azure commercial cloud or Azure Government. This method allows agencies to “more easily manage their own security, privacy, and compliance requirements, such as stringent cybersecurity frameworks (IL5, CJIS, ITAR, FedRAMP High),” according to OpenAI.

Another benefit, according to the company, is that ChatGPT Gov can make the process of getting internal authorization of non-public sensitive data for processing by OpenAI’s models faster and more seamless. ChatGPT Gov usage will also be subject to OpenAI’s usage policies, which ban harmful use and establish safeguards for using the chatbot. While OpenAI did not share details about timeline rollout or pricing, it did encourage interested parties to contact their sales team.

Privacy concerns

Naturally, one concern regarding the use of OpenAI in government functions was users’ data privacy, as reflected in comments to OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil’s X post when launching the service. 

X user @tanvitabs shared: “It’s concerning that official public data is being given to AI without explicit permission from the individuals involved. This raises significant privacy issues as you move towards integrating AI in government operations.”

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Weil responded to the comment by reiterating that the product is self-hosted in the user’s cloud environment, which already has been accredited, and the Azure OpenAI API will offer features such as Zero Data Retention (ZDR) in classified environments.