GSA to Run More Like a Business, Administrator Says

The head of the General Services Administration says the agency will be run "more like a business" after the Trump administration downsized its operations and canceled many federal contracts as part of the Department of Government Efficiency's cost-cutting efforts.

GSA Deputy Administrator Stephen Ehikian, who is the agency's acting administrator, said on Thursday at the GovExec Government Efficiency Summit that the agency is planning a "build back" to position the agency to be run "more like a business … where it's much more efficient, much more effective and [with] much more of an eye towards our stakeholders, which is the American taxpayer."

Ehikian said that "the build back isn't just bringing it back to where it was before; it is rethinking the GSA."

He went on to say that "phase two will be taking a more slimmed down version of GSA and thinking of, 'how do you streamline workflow, business processes, bring new technologies in, rearrange, restructure the workforce itself, moving from a regional model to more centralized model?'"

Ehikian noted that the GSA has begun adopting artificial intelligence tools, including the launch of an internal chatbot known as GSAI that about half the agency's employees use daily.

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