Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an AI guy. Last week, during a stop in Nashville on his Take Back Your Health tour, the Health and Human Services secretary brought up the technology between condemning ultra-processed foods and urging Americans to eat protein. "My agency is now leading the federal government in driving AI into all of our activities," he declared. An army of bots, Kennedy said, will transform medicine, eliminate fraud, and put a virtual doctor in everyone's pocket. RFK Jr. has talked up the promise of infusing his department with AI for months.

Experts worry Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Health Department will use an internal AI tool to analyze vaccine injury claims in a way that furthers his anti-vaccine agenda. The US Department of Health and Human Services is developing a generative artificial intelligence tool to find patterns across data reported to a national vaccine monitoring database and to generate hypotheses on the negative effects of vaccines, according to an inventory released last week of all use cases the agency had for AI in 2025. The tool has not yet been deployed, according to the HHS document, and an AI inventory report from the previous year shows that it has been in development since late 2023. But experts worry that the predictions it generates could be used by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to further his anti-vaccine agenda. A long-standing vaccine critic, Kenedy has upended the childhood vaccination schedule in his year in office, removing several shots from a list of recommended immunizations for all children, including those for Covid-19, influenza, hepatitis A and B, meningococcal disease, rotavirus, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

HHS Is Using AI Tools From Palantir to Target'DEI' and'Gender Ideology' in Grants Since March of 2025, the Trump Administration has used tools from Palantir and the startup Credal AI to weed out "DEI" and "gender ideology from child welfare programs. A view of the Palantir building is seen during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026 in Davos, Switzerland. Since last March, the Department of Health and Human Services has been using AI tools from Palantir to screen and audit grants, grant applications, and job descriptions for noncompliance with President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting "gender ideology" and anything related to diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), according to a recently published inventory of all use cases HHS had for AI in 2025. Neither Palantir nor HHS has publicly announced that the company's software was being used for these purposes. During the first year of Trump's second term, Palantir earned more than $35 million in payments and obligations ...

The annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research took place in Seattle this week. The field's premiere scientific conference was scheduled to be held in the Emerald City five years ago, until COVID-19 dashed those plans. This time, U.S. autism researchers face a very different kind of crisis: massive cuts to federal funding, Cabinet members making false statements about the complex neurological condition they study, and a series of confusing and potentially worrisome policy announcements about autism research. In April, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services disclosed that it's planning a 50-million "comprehensive research effort aimed at understanding the causes of [autism spectrum disorder] and improving treatments," a department spokesperson said. The effort was spurred by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s stated goal of determining the cause of autism, a neurological and developmental condition whose symptoms cluster around challenges with communication, social interaction and sensory processing.

AI software company C3.ai (NYSE:AI) and software services firm CITI have been awarded a joint $90M, five-year contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The blanket purchase agreement will expedite enterprise AI deployments across the entire HHS. The agreement enables various HHS agencies and missions to select C3 AI (AI) solutions to support data-driven work. Specifically, it enables HHS officials to procure C3 AI applications, C3 AI's AI platform for data collection, analysis with machine learning, and predictive AI capabilities and CITI services. The BPA allows HHS officials to procure CITI services, C3 AI applications, and C3 AI's secure and powerful AI platform for data collection, analysis with machine learning, and predictive AI capabilities.

The Department of Health and Human Services is developing an artificial intelligence playbook to help teams overcome common obstacles and challenges that come with implementing AI technologies. HHS Chief AI Officer Oki Mek discussed the playbook and how it plays into his overall priority of making AI a collaboratively cultivated technology at the agency during a NextGov event July 29. He said that one of the elements that he hopes to include in the playbook is to help with barriers to data acquisition, which he added is especially difficult within HHS. "Having a playbook could really help in terms of, what are the obstacles that you will encounter when you go on this AI, machine learning journey, because the two biggest obstacles are really the data acquisition, getting the data, especially with Health and Human Services because health records and data are very heavily regulated, so data acquisition will be tough," Mek said. "We could help provide some guidance and some lessons learned, some best practices around that." Mek added that the playbook could also provide some guidance around cleaning data, since cleaning and processing data is a big component of getting it ready for AI usage. The playbook will also provide definitions around AI, which Mek argued is a broad term that can have different meanings and applications.

"[You have to] have a definition of AI, machine learning, you can go into NLP, deep learning and what is the difference between AI …

Machine Learning also provides a great tool to conduct predictive analysis to understand risk and plan accordingly, and in some cases provides …

Many governments worldwide are looking at using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other cognitive technologies as part of making their operations more efficient, better serving their citizens, and increasing the range of ways they can meet their missions. It's no surprise then that the US Government and forward thinking leadership is making investments into AI technologies. Additionally, some agencies such as the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) are also seeing how other emerging technologies such as blockchain can help. Jose Arrieta, the CIO at the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), interviewed on a recent AI Today podcast episode while he was the associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition at HHS is one such leader who sees how AI and blockchain can have a big impact at the agency. He became a program manager to build IT systems to use machine learning to analyze biographical information about people.

In 2019 HHS, the largest privately-owned support services company in the U.S., made history – the first that will deploy a fleet of Avidbots Neo floor-scrubbing robots in hospitals. It began several years earlier. The healthcare facilities management industry – among HHS' key markets – was in a state of flux and custodial services were feeling the squeeze. As medical facilities sought ways to reduce overhead, patient support functions like housekeeping and custodial were natural targets. HHS was being asked to do more with less.