Office of Grants Management (PGM) Grants Utility Tool

Overview

Development stage

DeployedSource: c) Deployed – The use case is being actively authorized or utilized to support the functions or mission of an agency.

High-impact designation

Not high-impactSource: c) Not high-impact

Impact justification

Not reported

Start date

2024-04-10 (day precision)Source: 4/10/2024

Withheld from public reporting

NoSource: a) No

Mission

Topic area

Procurement and Financial Management

Operational functions

No function tag matched Derived by keyword rules; see methodology

Problem the AI is intended to solve

PGM faced growing operational and compliance challenges across the entire financial assistance lifecycle. Manual processes—project description reviews, pre-award SAM.gov validations, and detailed budget analyses—were extremely labor-intensive, inconsistent across bureaus, and vulnerable to human error. Staff were required to review thousands of records each year, including over 8,000 project descriptions, more than 13,000 pre-award validation actions, and more than 8,000 detailed budget submissions. Each task required extensive reading, cross-checking across multiple systems, and detailed documentation. These demands strained a shrinking grants workforce, delayed internal control reviews, increased the risk of compliance failures under 2 CFR 200, and diverted staff from higher-value oversight activities. The Department needed a standardized, accurate, and scalable way to conduct internal controls testing, ensure timely eligibility checks, and complete budget reviews without overwhelming staff resources or jeopardizing compliance.

Expected benefits

Automated analysis increased objectivity, removed inconsistencies in how staff interpreted regulatory requirements, and provided faster, more reliable information to support program decisions.

System outputs

The combined AI tools automatically generate standardized compliance outputs across project descriptions, budget reviews, and entity validations, replacing thousands of hours of manual analysis. They produce automated scoring, flags for risks or inconsistencies, cross-walks between budget documents, and complete audit-ready records aligned with internal control requirements. Together, these outputs streamline oversight, strengthen regulatory compliance, and create a consistent, defensible documentation trail for more than 29,000 annual financial assistance actions.

Technology

AI classification

Agentic AISource: Agentic AI: AI systems that perform tasks or make decisions autonomously with minimal human intervention.

System name(s)

Not reported

Custom-developed code

No

Public source code

Not reported

Sourcing

How it was built

Developed in-houseSource: b) Developed in-house

Vendor (as reported)

Not reported

Vendors (standardized)

None on the standard list

A vendor is the supplier named by the agency. It does not identify the underlying model or AI technology.

Data and privacy

Involves PII

No

Privacy Impact Assessment

Not reported

Authorization to Operate

Yes

Demographic features

k) None of the above

Training and evaluation data

Various public sources

Federal Data Catalog

sam.gov

Governance

0 of 8 minimum-practice questions answered. A blank answer means the agency reported nothing; it does not mean the practice is absent.

Potential impacts and how they were identified

Not reported