One of many Trump administration’s prime tech leaders says overhauling how the federal authorities delivers advantages and providers to the general public requires the identical degree of mission self-discipline instilled in Marines.
“’Your job is to kill folks.’ That’s the very first thing drilled into new recruits at the USA Marine Corps boot camp. It’s blunt by design — to not glorify violence, however to create absolute readability,” Federal Chief Info Officer Greg Barbaccia, an Military veteran, stated in his opening remarks at an business convention Friday.
Because the Workplace of Administration and Finances’s lead on bettering customer support governmentwide, Barbaccia stated his prime precedence is to get companies to “obsess over delivering tangible outcomes and outcomes for the American taxpayer.”
“There ought to by no means be ambiguity about what success appears like. There ought to by no means be confusion about whether or not we’re making progress. If we will’t see it, we will’t repair it,” he stated at a convention hosted by ACT-IAC and Dorris Consulting Worldwide.
The Trump administration remains to be constructing out the crew that may perform this work. The Workplace of Personnel Administration, by its new Tech Power initiative, is seeking to recruit about 1,000 technologists to enroll in a two-year stint within the federal authorities. Barbaccia instructed reporters that the administration is reviewing about 6,000 Tech Power functions.
“We’re placing them by code critiques. There’s going to be panel interviews. So we’re very excited for that first cohort,” he stated.
About 320,000 federal staff left the federal government final yr. Of these, about 13,000 have been IT managers.
Companies are additionally within the strategy of naming service supply leads, as required below the 2023 Authorities Service Supply Enchancment Act. The identical laws required OMB to call its personal governmentwide service supply lead — a title that Barbaccia holds.
Some companies have already got a buyer expertise officer or a buyer expertise workplace. In some instances, company IT outlets have headed up this work. Barbaccia stated he’s much less involved about how companies are internally structured to deal with this work, and extra targeted on outcomes.
“The general public doesn’t care how we’re organized. They care about getting a solution, finishing a job, or fixing an issue with out friction. Begin with the individual we’re serving and design backward, orient round life occasions and outcomes, not inside boundaries,” he stated.
Barbaccia stated the designation of CX leaders will differ agency-by-agency, however he stated too many C-suite leaders in authorities are “dual-hatted” and balancing a number of tasks. He instructed reporters that he would love companies to faucet leaders who will make this work their prime precedence.
“I’ll gladly take a extra junior, motivated individual than any person who’s a [deputy] secretary, senior advisor that’s actually simply going to do that as a compliance train,” he stated.
Barbaccia stated the federal authorities is at an “inflection level” with synthetic intelligence, and that these instruments are going to be a “phenomenal drive multiplier” that may change the way in which companies ship providers to the general public.
“The expertise we’ve out there to us proper now, and the tempo at which it’s advancing, provides us a possibility to basically change how authorities operations and the way it serves. However that chance doesn’t unlock itself. It unlocks by the folks on this room,” he stated.
Barbaccia stated the administration is experimenting with AI to do “full web site redesigns.”
“We’re going to have the ability to transfer a lot sooner now, which is nice, as a result of we’ve bought some fairly formidable objectives,” he stated.
The Nationwide Design Studio, led by U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia, is seeking to overhaul about 27,000 federal web sites. Barbaccia stated he’s additionally working with the Nationwide Design Studio on delivering a “one authorities” method to web site design.
“It’s jarring to the general public when one company’s digital expertise is totally totally different than one other company,” he stated. “We’re now coalescing that voice that we’re giving to the general public. Not solely from the visible design facet … You’re feeling such as you’re visiting the identical entity whenever you have a look at totally different web sites … It’s the identical voice being spoken to you.”
Barbaccia stated the administration can be targeted on utilizing AI to allow extra self-service choices and “reduce the quantity of interactions that should happen within the first place.”
“Persons are calling name facilities, they usually’re asking the identical seven forms of issues. That is one thing that synthetic intelligence is admittedly good at — going by 1000’s and 1000’s of questions worded other ways and choosing out a dozen classes of questions. How will we get that instantly on the FAQ part, so folks don’t should work together with a chatbot or a human?” he stated.
Companies have begun to launch up to date inventories of AI use instances. Barbaccia stated these inventories present many companies are taking a look at AI to unravel the identical issues.
“We’re attempting to see, as a substitute of letting each company construct one thing and spend time iterating on one thing, what we’re doing that’s fascinating is bringing everyone who’s doing the identical downside into the identical room, so we might do demos, see what’s finest, what works effectively, after which not recreate it one million instances,” he instructed reporters.
Mo Earley, the director of federal buyer expertise at OMB, stated the administration is working with almost 40 companies and applications deemed as Excessive-Service Impression Suppliers on methods to make use of AI to enhance their buyer expertise.
“There’s an enormous quantity of alternative throughout your complete service journey of each service that we work with, and the place various kinds of AI can plug in,” Earley stated.
The primary Trump administration made buyer expertise the main target of its President’s Administration Agenda. The second Trump administration’s PMA is concentrated on leveraging expertise to ship sooner providers and constructing “safe, digital-first providers which can be constructed for actual folks, not paperwork.”
Whereas a number of presidents have made improved buyer expertise a prime administration precedence, Barbaccia stated companies nonetheless haven’t delivered on some primary accomplishments. For instance, companies too usually ask folks to supply the identical info on the identical varieties again and again.
“For years, we’ve been busy fixing seen issues. We redesign an internet site, we digitize a kind. We shave a number of days off of processing time. That work issues — it simply hasn’t been sufficient. As a result of these [are] signs, not causes. The true downside isn’t simply dangerous interfaces or sluggish workflows. The true downside is that we’ve constructed programs and constructions that tolerate complexity, fragmentation, and friction,” Barbaccia stated.
Jonathan Finch, OMB’s digital expertise director, stated the administration’s focus is “not simply to repair signs, it’s to go after root causes.”
“We will repair an internet site, we will repair a kind. However why was it not the place it needs to be within the first place? Is it a query of governance, is it a query of expertise — the platforms and tooling that we provide? Is it a query of coverage? Are there authorized blockers which can be stopping us from having the ability to ship the expertise that we would like?” Finch stated.
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