Your AI Career Companion: The Future of Federal Work Starts Now

October 30, 2025

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In his conversation with Francis Rose on Fed Gov Today, former Office of Personnel Management Chief Information Officer Melvin Brown paints a vivid picture of how the federal workforce can rebuild smarter after the government shutdown. Brown isn’t just talking about recovery — he’s talking about reinvention, and his ideas center on empathy, agility, and technology that empowers people rather than replaces them.

When federal employees return to work, Brown says, they aren’t walking back into the same landscape. Systems may be out of sync, operations disrupted, and momentum lost. But he believes this disruption presents an opportunity: to pause, reassess, and rebuild federal operations with intention. Instead of simply restarting the same processes, agencies can use this moment to modernize outdated systems and rethink the business of government itself.

Brown highlights the Office of Personnel Management’s HR modernization initiative as a prime example. Rather than renewing long-standing contracts, OPM is taking a strategic pause to reevaluate how HR services work across the enterprise. He argues that agencies should focus on establishing consistency and shared frameworks, especially for common functions like hiring, budgeting, and back-office operations. “Everybody thinks they’re a snowflake,” Brown notes, but in reality, most agencies follow the same HR and financial rules. By consolidating systems and creating government-wide platforms, agencies can deliver a more unified and efficient employee experience.

At the heart of Brown’s vision is a call for the federal government to modernize the business of IT, not just the technology itself. The real barriers, he says, are not technical — they’re organizational and procedural. Outdated policies, rigid budget processes, and fragmented strategies hold agencies back from fully leveraging new technologies. CIOs, Brown suggests, should lead by assessing their systems, identifying what can be standardized, and defining what truly needs to remain unique to their missions.

Competition, Brown adds, is key to innovation. He points to the Department of Defense’s multi-vendor cloud strategy as a successful model, where several major providers compete to meet the department’s needs. A similar approach, he argues, could benefit HR and financial systems, ensuring agencies avoid vendor lock-in while driving continuous improvement.

Perhaps Brown’s most forward-looking idea involves agentic AI — advanced AI that acts as a proactive, intelligent assistant. He envisions a future where every federal employee receives a personalized AI companion on their first day of work. This AI would follow them throughout their federal career, tied to their email and identity, helping with everything from benefits enrollment to training recommendations and career development. It would act like a personal HR professional, offering reminders, insights, and opportunities tailored to each individual.

Brown sees this as not just a technological innovation, but a cultural shift. He encourages agencies to move away from traditional “org charts” toward “work charts,” mapping which tasks require human creativity and which can be handled by AI. The goal is to build a collaborative human-AI workforce, where people focus on the uniquely human aspects of public service while AI handles routine administrative work.

For Brown, this isn’t science fiction — it’s a near-term possibility. With access to data, open standards, and enterprise-wide coordination, the federal government could usher in a new era of efficiency and personalization. His message is clear: the future of federal work is not just digital — it’s human-centered AI that grows with every employee, every agency, and every mission.