{"id":25222,"date":"2023-03-06T20:16:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T20:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/03\/06\/software-bots-less-effective-than-hud-claimed-watchdog-says\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T05:06:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:06:03","slug":"software-bots-less-effective-than-hud-claimed-watchdog-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/federal-oversight\/watchdogs\/2023\/03\/06\/software-bots-less-effective-than-hud-claimed-watchdog-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Software bots less effective than HUD claimed, watchdog says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development significantly overstated how much time its software bots would save workers, according to an inspector general report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, HUD began its program for robotic process automation \u2014 technology that allows users to build software bots that can take over tedious and time-consuming tasks for humans, such as copying and pasting data, filling in forms or responding to emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUD reported that 14 bots were being used that were saving 13,644 labor hours each year as of March 2022. The inspector general report found that only seven distinct bots were used, saving 1,015 labor hours or 7% of the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe found that many of HUD\u2019s bots … ultimately provided minimal business value,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal agencies, through RPA and even AI, have been experimenting with technology to automate government work as a way to lower costs, free up workers and reduce errors for business processes and the millions of claims that come through public programs each year, whether at the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration or the Center for Medicaid and Medicare. Success has been mixed, however, because the type of work, funding and staffing varies between agencies, technology experts said at a recent panel on AI in government. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The General Services Administration, for examples, uses a bot to survey customers for building leases that has created an average of 260 hours of capacity per year per year. Before, more than 60 employees did that surveying manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\t