“The Congressional Research Service and the Future of AI-Enabled Policy Analysis”

The Committee on House Administration held a hearing on June 26, 2026, focused on the Congressional Research Service's (CRS) integration of AI-enabled policy analysis. Dr. Karen Donfried, CRS Director, testified about CRS's efforts to responsibly incorporate AI tools to enhance legislative research and analysis while maintaining core values of confidentiality, objectivity, non-partisanship, authoritativeness, and timeliness. CRS has experimented with AI for bill summaries but found current large language models only met accuracy standards about 3% of the time, highlighting the need for human oversight. To advance AI capabilities, CRS requested $1.6 million in its fiscal 2027 budget to hire five data science and AI development staff and to support a secure AI platform in partnership with the Library of Congress. Members emphasized the importance of CRS's expert workforce and discussed the potential for AI to improve efficiency in coding, data analytics, and constituent services. The hearing also addressed concerns about AI bias and the need for tailored AI models trained on legislative data to ensure accuracy and impartiality. The committee expressed support for continued investment in AI tools to modernize CRS and enhance congressional transparency and responsiveness.