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Rep. Lee presses CRS on AI; CRS official highlights data tools, urges offices to consult CRS
Summary
At a House Administration hearing Rep. Lee questioned the Congressional Research Service about AI use. CRS official Dr. Donfried described AI-assisted coding for graphics, five data-analytics models and a Regs.gov comments tool, and advised members to rely on CRS rather than AI for formal analysis.
Representative J. Lee questioned Dr. Donfried of the Congressional Research Service on the agency’s current and prospective uses of artificial intelligence during a House Administration committee exchange.
Lee opened by thanking Dr. Donfried and stressing CRS’s role as a nonpartisan source that must keep pace with technology while maintaining accuracy and rigor. Lee said earlier discussion had flagged “the unsatisfactory response of the … large language models in creating those bill summaries” and asked Dr. Donfried for specific examples where CRS has used AI or advanced data tools successfully to help congressional offices.
Dr. Donfried replied that CRS has applied AI to coding tasks that speed production of interactive graphics and infographics, which allows visualization experts to focus on analytic judgment. “AI is very good in speeding up that process and freeing up our visualization and graphics experts to do the work that AI can’t,” he said.
He described broader data-analytics work CRS began after congressional direction in 2023. “To date, my colleagues have created at this point five different data analytic models that we’re using from everything from health insurance pricing to a student loan calculator,” Dr. Donfried said, and he noted a tool that ingests public comments from Regulations.gov and uses AI-assisted analysis to synthesize sentiment (positive, neutral, negative) and verify results to help policymakers understand comment trends.
Rep. Lee then asked whether CRS had use cases that would help offices respond to constituent questions in real time — for example on disaster assistance or federal benefits. Dr. Donfried emphasized CRS’s role in constituent support and urged Members and staff to “go to CRS first.” He added he was “not confident in the accuracy of AI models to produce analysis for you,” and said CRS would continue to serve legislative, oversight and representational needs.
The exchange focused on practical CRS tools — graphics automation, discrete analytic models and a comment-synthesis tool — and on the agency’s caution about relying on AI for substantive analysis. No formal vote or committee action was recorded in this portion of the hearing.
