Deloitte to Build a Dedicated Research Practice for Evaluating CMS's AI Technologies — a federal contract (USAspending)

CMS (the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) administers Medicare, the public health insurance program for older Americans, and Medicaid, the program for people with low income, making it a large agency that directly affects Americans' access to health care. Its operating environment is described as increasingly complex, and the source frames AI (artificial intelligence, technology that draws conclusions or makes predictions from data) as representing both a tremendous opportunity and a significant responsibility. Rather than adopting such technology in an ad hoc way, this contract aims to set up a dedicated research practice — a focused, standing capability for research and validation — where emerging AI can be properly evaluated.

This matters because, for a public agency responsible for the health system, handling AI demands balancing usefulness with caution. Because missteps could affect large numbers of people, establishing a place to evaluate and validate technology before putting it into production reflects a practical way to bring in new tools while managing risk. The source's deliberate use of the word responsibility underscores that careful stance.

Viewed more broadly, this contract is one slice of the AI adoption underway across the federal government. How agencies validate emerging technology, and which private firms they rely on, can be tracked by anyone through government procurement data (USAspending). In a field as consequential as health care, the very choice to place evaluation and validation up front offers a reference point for thinking about how public agencies approach AI governance — the structures for controlling technology and using it responsibly.