Overview
- The Government Accountability Office, in a new audit, said last year’s workforce cuts left the IRS without enough people to develop, buy, or oversee artificial intelligence tools.
- IRS leaders reported losing about 40% of IT staff and roughly 80% of executives, while the procurement office lost about 40% of its workforce.
- After half the chief technology officer’s AI team departed in 2025, the office paused support for 10 of 11 AI use cases.
- GAO tallied 126 AI use cases at the IRS by June 2025, with only 49 operational and chatbots handling about 25 million sessions last filing season.
- The IRS agreed to draft a plan to close AI skills gaps but has not produced one under a hiring freeze, and one official said an audit-selection model may stop as fewer audits also shrink training data.