The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) has announced about $83.4 million for four projects aimed at modernising federal systems and speeding up government workflows, from replacing legacy payroll technology to using AI to streamline application reviews.
The investments span the State, Agriculture and Transportation departments and were announced on October 1, FedScoop reported. They combine agentic AI, system consolidation and AI-enabled records processing, with human review built into projects that use AI for decision-making.
Agriculture receives funding for payroll and faster reviews
The largest investment is $52.3 million for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to replace a high-risk legacy payroll system at its National Finance Center. The replacement will be a cloud-based platform built around AI and automation, aligned with the Office of Personnel Management’s HR 2.0 plan for rebuilding federal human resources systems.
A separate $10 million Department of Agriculture project will bring 10 review systems run by different departmental agencies onto a single platform. AI will identify applications eligible for the fastest review path.
That project is expected to save 1.8 million labour hours annually and process about 78% of fast-track applications in near real time.
AI agents and complaint processing
The State Department will receive $17.3 million to introduce agentic AI into help-desk operations, research and scenario planning. Employees will also be able to create their own automated agents, with a person reviewing every automated decision.
TMF expects the project to save more than 100,000 staff hours annually once it is fully operational.
The Transportation Department will use $3.8 million to add AI to its aviation consumer complaint system. The technology will categorise complaints, detect duplicates and accelerate the extraction of public records. Employees will review each automated decision.
Connecting systems before applying AI
Alongside automation, the projects address the fragmented systems and underlying data on which AI-enabled work depends.
The USDA review project will establish a common environment for AI by combining 10 systems into one platform. The Transportation project, meanwhile, illustrates how structured information can support automated classification and analysis.
For chief data officers (CDOs), these investments highlight the importance of data integration and consistency alongside AI deployment. Reliable AI-enabled systems require an understanding of where information resides, how systems connect and how automated decisions can be reviewed and traced.