House records show ChatGPT dominates paid AI use on Capitol Hill

House spending records showed ChatGPT had become the dominant paid AI tool on Capitol Hill, with House offices using it to draft memos, summarize legislation and help with constituent communications while Congress debated how to regulate artificial intelligence. The concentration is striking: one product captured 80% of identifiable House AI spending, and House disbursement records showed at least $100,580 spent on ChatGPT in a year.

The spending pattern sits inside a broader legislative paper trail. The Committee on House Administration issued a series of AI flash reports across 2023 and 2024, including a December 18, 2023 update from the Subcommittee on Modernization and a July 31, 2024 release on the July 2024 Artificial Intelligence Flash Report. The committee said the final AI report for the 118th Congress was meant to summarize oversight work, document accomplishments and flag issues for future Congresses, while a House Administration summary said the series was produced at the direction of Bryan Steil, Joseph D. Morelle, Stephanie Bice and Derek Kilmer.

Those committee materials treated generative AI as a governance issue, not just a workplace convenience. One House Administration PDF said generative AI had disrupted multiple industries, including government operations, and had triggered a global conversation about its social implications. That frame now collides with the practical reality of congressional offices relying on a chatbot from OpenAI for day-to-day work.

The spending totals help show how quickly that reliance grew. POPVOX reported $156.7 thousand in matched AI-tool spending across 1,140 matched rows, with January through March 2026 spending at $71.0 thousand, or 3.5 times the amount in January through March 2025. FedScoop also reported that the House of Representatives’ digital service distributed 40 ChatGPT Plus licenses to lawmakers’ offices, while another FedScoop report said ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot were approved for use with Senate data. The Senate’s move suggested Congress was broadening authorized AI use, but not in a way that dislodged ChatGPT’s lead.

The policy debate has been moving in parallel. In 2023, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law as lawmakers weighed AI regulation. In the 119th Congress, the CREATE AI Act of 2025, H.R. 2385, became part of that same legislative conversation. What the spending records add is a question of consistency: if Congress is setting rules for AI in public life, it is already relying on one company’s system for internal work, raising stakes for transparency, accuracy and recordkeeping on Capitol Hill.