Entering the halls of power, AI chatbots get approved for U.S. Senate use

After some staffers had been using chatbots informally at work since at least 2025, the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms office of the Chief Information Officer has now approved three of them officially.

The chatbots cleared for «drafting and editing documents, summarizing information, preparing talking points and briefing material, and conducting research and analysis» are ChatGPT Enterprise, Gemini on Workspace and Copilot, according to Business Insider.

Anthropic’s Claude is not on the list, although it has been approved for use in The House of Representatives since September 2024. President Trump earlier said government agencies shouldn’t use Claude after the Pentagon spat in February.

The Sergeant at Arms will now provide all Senate employees with an AI chatbot license at no cost. The office also touts Copilot Chat as integrated with Office 365 and is usable with Word and Excel — although Claude also offers this capability.

Read more: Business Insider has the memo, NY Times reported it first. Popvox has a Congressional AI tracker.