DOGE and State Governments Deploy AI to Cut Regulations

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and multiple U.S. state governments are implementing artificial intelligence to identify and propose reductions in federal and state regulatory burdens. DOGE has specifically targeted 100,000 federal regulations that it claims lack statutory authority, aiming to reverse institutional decay and shift power from bureaucrats back to elected officials.

At the state level, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin issued Executive Order 51 in July, mandating that state agencies employ agentic AI to perform regular reviews of rulebooks. This initiative builds on a four-year trend in Virginia that saw a 26.8% reduction in regulatory requirements. These prior cuts resulted in $1.2 billion in annual savings and lowered the cost of new homes by $24,000.

Proponents of these measures argue that AI can process millions of pages of legal text more efficiently than human staff. This technological deployment is part of a broader effort by the administration of Donald Trump to eliminate federal bureaucracy and streamline government operations.