ChatGPT Leads Paid AI Use on Capitol Hill, House Records Show

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is Congress’ AI tool of choice so far based on money spent, according to a CNBC report cited by TechCrunch. House disbursement records show OpenAI received roughly 90% of all spending on AI tools by House offices, committees, and institutional accounts during the year ending March 31.

Congress spent around $100,580 across 798 transactions on ChatGPT, out of at least $113,740 in total AI spending. Anthropic’s Claude ranked second, with $13,160 across 37 transactions.

Congressional staffers are using ChatGPT and other AI tools for practical office work: writing memos, summarizing and analyzing legislation, responding to constituents, preparing hearing materials, and sorting through policy research. The tools are also being used to draft social media posts.

The pattern points to AI becoming part of day-to-day legislative support work, especially where offices need to process large volumes of text quickly.

Democratic offices accounted for $54,165 in AI purchases, three times the $15,782 spent by Republican offices, according to the TechCrunch summary of the records. The records cover paid purchases, not every possible use of AI on Capitol Hill.

That means the spending totals are useful as a signal of paid adoption, but they are not a complete measure of how widely congressional staff use AI tools.

The insights exclude AI adoption through free accounts or AI bundled into broader software contracts. That limitation matters because AI features are increasingly available inside larger productivity and enterprise products.

The key takeaway: ChatGPT leads the visible paid-AI spending captured in House records, but the full scope of congressional AI use may be broader than the disclosed transactions show.