OPM uses AI to speed federal hiring and retirement processing
The Office of Personnel Management is deploying artificial intelligence to streamline two bottlenecks in federal workforce management: writing job descriptions and handling retirement benefit requests that are overwhelming call centers.
OPM Director Scott Kupor unveiled the USA Class tool, which uses AI trained on thousands of existing federal job descriptions to generate drafts aligned with OPM's classification standards. Hiring managers review the outputs before posting positions.
The federal government employs more than 2 million civilian workers across more than 600 job classifications. Writing descriptions that match the correct classification level and job family has traditionally consumed significant time for HR staff.
"If you feed AI a bunch of job descriptions, it's a lot easier to create the next job description by you being able to type in and say, 'OK, I'm hiring for a financial analyst, tell me what's needed,'" Kupor said at the UiPath Fusion conference in Washington, D.C.
Retirement benefits backlog
On the other end of the employment lifecycle, retirement processing has relied on paper and manual work for roughly 50 years. Documents move between HR departments, payroll, and a records facility in Boyers, Pennsylvania.
OPM's retirement services call centers receive far more calls than staff can handle. The agency plans to deploy AI chatbots to handle routine requests - address changes, basic form updates - freeing call center workers for complex cases.
"If you're trying to change your address on a retirement form, it's just so obvious that we can do that in a way that is modern," Kupor said, "and not tied to the business hours of a call center."
Automation as a tool, not a replacement
Kupor stressed that both initiatives aim to assist workers, not replace them. AI handles the manual, repetitive work so HR staff can focus on recruitment, candidate conversations, and complex problem-solving.
"If you've got some complicated problem, then yes, I want you to talk to the individual," he said. "But if it's routine, we should automate it."
Learn more about AI for Human Resources or explore the AI Learning Path for CHROs to understand how AI is reshaping workforce management.
Your membership also unlocks:
