GAO pushes forward on intelligent automation to improve cybersecurity, CX

As part of a strategy to enhance cybersecurity, operational efficiency and customer experience, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is taking advantage of intelligent automation across its operations.

With intelligent automation, GAO, for example, is moving toward proactive cyber defense, implementing tools that not only track anomalies, but also potentially block malicious activity before they can impact operations. 

“If we’re getting information that has a lot of personal identifiable information (PII) in it that maybe are going to the wrong folks, how do we make sure that we’re looking at what that information is, and potentially blocking it before it comes in?” said GAO Chief Information Officer Beth Killoran. “Those are the types of things we’re working to mature and add some additional tools, understanding where we potentially had some increased risk of data being exposed and … bringing those capabilities and tools forward so that we can help our employees work on some things that we know are just common mistakes.”

The GAO’s forthcoming IT strategic plan for fiscal 2025 to 2027 highlights the transformative power of intelligent automation and how it will impact several aspects of its operations — most importantly, cybersecurity, Killoran said.

“Cybersecurity has been on the high-risk list across the federal government for a number of years,” Killoran said on Federal Monthly Insights – Intelligent Automation. “We want to make sure that no matter what we do, it’s secure because we have a lot of data from a lot of places.”

Automation lets the team manage thousands of devices and users while maintaining compliance with both legislative and executive cybersecurity mandates.

“At the end of the day, our most valuable asset in the government is our data,” Killoran said. “What are we doing to protect that? We are taking those lessons learned, the best practices and recommendations that GAO has for other agencies and making sure that we’re using the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 2.0 cybersecurity framework, understanding the controls and putting those things in place.  We’re working holistically to mature our cybersecurity constructs by implementing a good zero trust network and capabilities starting on the cloud side.”

Automation in legislative mandates, reporting

GAO is tasked with reviewing massive amounts of bills and legislative requirements, which intelligent automation can alleviate through streamlining the legislative mandate tracking process. 

“We have a lot of legislative mandates, so our congressional affairs team spends a lot of time going through those and parsing out the pieces that are going to be requirements for us to follow based on what the congressional organizations want us to do,” Killoran said.  “The first [use case] actually will pass out and read all of those proposed bills, consolidate them, track them as they go through the process, and alert us when either they pass or are getting close to passing, so that we can start alerting and prepare for that work on our side.”

This system is just one example of how GAO plans to automate complex workflows, allowing teams to save significant manual effort and devote time to more high-value activities.

Boosting CX through automation

GAO is also using automation to improve the customer experience for its employees and stakeholders. 

“From a customer perspective, we really are looking at changing how we think about things and flipping IT on its head,” Killoran said.  

As the agency moves toward a more user-centric model, they have created intuitive systems designed around personas, ensuring seamless interaction with their products and services. 

Killoran sees utilizing automation in areas like employee self-service and document preparation, or tools like chatbots and AI editors that are already in development, as pivotal to overall efficiency.

“We want to make sure the technology is intuitive and allows our teams to focus on delivering core capabilities,” she said.

One of the things Killoran said GAO is starting to measure is not just customer satisfaction, but customer effort.

“The goal is to reduce that effort over time so that they are able to focus on accomplishing their mission and producing the work products they have and being able to build the legislation that helps the American people,” Killoran said.

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