Vocational Assessment Assistant Tool (VAAT)
Social Security Administration · Chief Information Officer, Disability Information Systems
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
- High-impactSource: a) High-impact
- Impact justification
- Not reported
- Start date
- 2025-09-30 (day precision)Source: 9/30/2025 0:00
- Withheld from public reporting
- NoSource: a) No
Mission
- Topic area
- Government Benefits Processing
- Operational functions
- No function tag matched Derived by keyword rules; see methodology
Problem the AI is intended to solve
The AI is intended to address the problem of a manual, time-consuming, and expertise-dependent process for researching job codes and analyzing transferable skills, which can result in inconsistent outcomes among different examiners and offices.
Expected benefits
The expected benefits of the AI include streamlining and speeding up vocational analysis, increasing consistency and standardization in decision-making, improving the quality and reliability of determinations, and allowing staff to dedicate more time to complex case analysis rather than routine manual tasks. These outcomes support the agency’s mission and benefit the general public by promoting more efficient and equitable service delivery.
System outputs
The AI system produces recommendations for key evaluation steps and provides structured explanations to support vocational decisions.
Technology
- AI classification
- Generative AISource: Generative AI: AI that generates new or synthetic content (e.g., images, videos, audio, text, code).
- System name(s)
- eDIB Cloud
- Custom-developed code
- Yes
- Public source code
- Not open source - Code is proprietary SSA internal development and not publicly released.
Sourcing
- How it was built
- Contract and in-houseSource: c) Developed with both contracting and in-house resources
- Vendor (as reported)
- Microsoft / OpenAI
- Vendors (standardized)
- MicrosoftOpenAI
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 publicly available
- Authorization to Operate
- Yes
- Demographic features
- c) Age; l) Other
- Training and evaluation data
- The AI system uses commercially available foundation models that were pre-trained on publicly available data. For its specific use case, the system incorporates publicly sourced occupational databases and agency policy documents to support job matching and ensure alignment with relevant guidelines. No custom training or fine-tuning was performed by the agency.
- Federal Data Catalog
- N/A - The source data used for RAG is publicly available but not originated by SSA:
Governance
8 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
The potential impacts of using the AI include increased operational efficiency, greater consistency and accuracy in decision-making, and enhanced support for examiners. These positive outcomes were identified through studies, pilot program data, and user feedback. Potential negative impacts include the risk of incorrect determinations (either denying or awarding benefits in error) and possible processing delays if the system is unavailable.