US Agencies Get Green Light for Meta's Llama as GSA Expands Approved AI Tools

GSA Clears Meta's Llama for Federal Use: What Agencies Need to Know

The General Services Administration will add Meta's Llama to its list of approved AI tools for federal agencies, according to GSA procurement lead Josh Gruenbaum. This comes as the administration of President Donald Trump pushes to bring commercial AI into day-to-day government operations.

With GSA's approval, agencies can pilot Llama with the assurance that it meets federal security and legal standards. Llama is free to use and supports text, image, video, and audio inputs.

Why this matters for your agency

• Procurement-ready: Availability through GSA lowers barriers to testing and adoption.
• Compliance signal: GSA vetting reduces uncertainty around security and legal use.
• Cost control: Llama is free; other approved vendors have offered steep discounts through GSA.
• Multi-modal capability: Useful for document-heavy work, media analysis, and cross-format tasks.

Vendor landscape approved by GSA

In addition to Meta, GSA has signed off on tools from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. Agencies can compare fit, pricing, and integration paths before committing to a broader rollout.

Immediate use cases you can pilot

• Contract review: Summarize solicitations, flag clauses, and surface inconsistencies for human review.
• IT service desks: Draft responses, suggest fixes, and route tickets faster.
• Knowledge support: Create internal assistants that reference approved policy and guidance.
• Document processing: Summarize long memos and convert content across formats.

How to get started

• Confirm availability on GSA channels and your agency's procurement path. Visit GSA for acquisition guidance.
• Pick a 30-60 day pilot with clear success metrics (throughput, turnaround time, accuracy).
• Set data rules: scope inputs, redact sensitive content, and segment environments.
• Define your ATO approach and logging: document prompts, outputs, and human-in-the-loop steps.
• Train a small cadre of users and establish review protocols for any external communications.

Guardrails to put in place

• Align with the NIST AI Risk Management Framework for governance and oversight. See NIST AI RMF.
• Restrict PII and sensitive data unless approved for that environment.
• Require human review for contracting, legal, and public-facing outputs.
• Track model versions, datasets, and prompts for auditability.

What GSA is saying

Gruenbaum, GSA's procurement lead, said vendor discounts and cooperation are about collective progress: "It's about that recognition of how do we all lock in arms and make this country the best country it could possibly be."

Budget and acquisition notes

Llama is free to use. Competing tools from AWS, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI have been approved with steep discounts after meeting federal security requirements. Compare total cost of ownership, integration with your stack, and data controls before scaling.

Upskill your team

If your office is standing up pilots or building an internal playbook, focused training can shorten the learning curve. Explore role-based options here: AI courses by job and vendor-specific paths here: Courses by leading AI companies.