The apolitical data-driven roadmap DOGE needs to save our nation trillions
Originally published The apolitical data-driven roadmap DOGE needs to save our nation trillions on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2025/04/the-apolitical-data-driven-roadmap-doge-needs-to-save-our-nation-trillions/ at Federal News Network
Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are on the hunt to find waste, fraud and inefficiency across the government. So far, their focus has largely been “axe-based” on cutting certain programs, agencies or office space that can be eliminated in their view. Some of these changes have been met with varying degrees of outrage and opposition from the other side.
What if DOGE took a different, data-driven approach? Instead of using an axe to cut large swaths of agency programs or staff, they could use the power of AI-driven procurement technologies to surgically detect potential waste, fraud and sourcing savings. After all, this is what those in the private sector have been doing for years, with the highest performers driving savings of 6% of their total spend, which we’ve seen total more than $250 billion in business spend savings across organizations of all sizes.
How? They’ve been harnessing the collective power of AI and digital technologies to root out inefficiencies, cutting costs and driving savings, redeploying the funds saved for growth. The blueprint for finding these levels of savings across the government already exists if we are willing to use them, versus the scorched earth approach that may grab headlines in the near term.
Achieving the goal of saving trillions without compromising essential federal services is a formidable challenge, and there is no shortage of suggestions coming from every direction. From cuts to foreign aid, to eliminating the penny, or limiting soap for the Air Force, everything’s on the table. And it’s important that DOGE considers the trade-offs and long-term ramifications of anything they might decide to cut.
I’m not here to advocate for cuts to one program over another. But what I can offer is this: a fact-based alternative to making budget cuts in a silo. What if you let the data do the “proposing” for you of where best to find inefficiencies or waste? That is what AI-driven procurement technologies could do for the government for inter-agency wide total procurement reform.
According to the Government Accountability Office, procurement accounts for a substantial portion of overall spending, with the government committing over $759 billion to contracts in 2023 alone. That vast expenditure — nearly one-eighth of total federal spending — represents a massive savings opportunity. Because right now, the government’s procurement and spending processes and systems are outdated and fragmented, resulting in overspending, inefficiency and waste.
For instance, we estimate that reliance on manual processes is costing the U.S. about $39 billion every year — nearly as much as we spend on USAID, which was targeted for elimination by DOGE. By adopting a comprehensive, modern total spend management solution, the government could mature its procurement function and streamline and automate its spending operations, unlocking significant savings and labor efficiencies without compromising essential services.
While procurement cost-cutting efforts are seemingly underway, such as the Procurement Co-Pilot, powered by the Hi-Def Initiative, which is aimed at aggregating the government’s spend data and using data-driven insights to better inform purchasing and contracting, there’s much to be discovered about how much it’s being utilized and prioritized. Just imagine if we could combine Co-Pilot’s insights with the vast trove of spend intelligence available to the private sector — Coupa’s own community contains $7 trillion worth of transactional data. We could surely find additional savings.
Procurement maturity — and a strategic approach to total spend management — is about more than just savings. It’s about total transformation of people and processes, including optimization and real-time waste and fraud detection using AI.
The federal government employs over two million individuals, with many performing manual, error-prone repetitive tasks every day that could be automated with technology. Time is undoubtedly wasted on mundane tasks like purchase orders, invoicing and expense approvals, all of which can be streamlined and autonomously automated. This will free up hours of employee productivity time that can then be reallocated to higher-value and more impactful work.
According to Bain & Company, autonomous procurement processes could save the world’s 5,000 largest businesses up to $86 billion annually. Based on the initial results we have driven for our private and public-sector customers, we anticipate the government could reduce spend by hundreds of billions per year by automating these tasks.
With growing federal support and adoption of AI technology and infrastructure across the country, including the administration creating a first of its kind “AI Czar,” David Sacks, there is no better case study in how AI could transform government than starting with its procurement processes and technologies.
For example, with contract intelligence, instead of individuals wasting hours reviewing hundreds and hundreds of pages of supplier and vendor contracts, AI could do it in seconds. AI could also be leveraged to analyze and extract key contract data and make specific clause language recommendations to help reduce risk and enhance resilience. Another example is fraud detection, where AI can be deployed to proactively detect and identify spend anomalies to prevent fraudulent and non-compliant government spending before it happens, with the potential to save billions every year.
With the government’s renewed focus on efficiency, modernizing, autonomizing and optimizing procurement, using the power of AI deserves to be at the top of the agenda. It will make DOGE’s ambitious goal of cutting $2 trillion in spending more attainable — and less presumptively political — to maximize the value of every taxpayer dollar spent.
Bill Evanow is vice president for federal at Coupa.
Originally published The apolitical data-driven roadmap DOGE needs to save our nation trillions on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2025/04/the-apolitical-data-driven-roadmap-doge-needs-to-save-our-nation-trillions/ at Federal News Network
The Government Technology & Services Coalition (GTSC), the leading non-profit association for companies serving the federal homeland security mission, welcomes Monica Padron-Harris, former Senior IT Acquisition Advisor for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Office of Information Technology to its Advisory board. “GTSC is extremely pleased to welcome Monica to our Strategic Advisors. She has an […]
The post GTSC Welcomes Monica Padron-Harris to Strategic Advisory Board appeared first on HSToday.
This article is part of our weekly DefenseTech Brief.NATO has taken a significant
About Us
To assist commercially facing small and startup technology companies, and help determine if there is value in engaging with defense, intelligence community.
The apolitical data-driven roadmap DOGE needs to save our nation trillions
Originally published The apolitical data-driven roadmap DOGE needs to save our nation trillions on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2025/04/the-apolitical-data-driven-roadmap-doge-needs-to-save-our-nation-trillions/ at Federal News Network
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/AP_Poll_DOGE_99112-1024x686.jpgElon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are on the hunt to find waste, fraud and inefficiency across the government. So far, their focus has largely been “axe-based” on cutting certain programs, agencies or office space that can be eliminated in their view. Some of these changes have been met with varying degrees of outrage and opposition from the other side.
What if DOGE took a different, data-driven approach? Instead of using an axe to cut large swaths of agency programs or staff, they could use the power of AI-driven procurement technologies to surgically detect potential waste, fraud and sourcing savings. After all, this is what those in the private sector have been doing for years, with the highest performers driving savings of 6% of their total spend, which we’ve seen total more than $250 billion in business spend savings across organizations of all sizes.
How? They’ve been harnessing the collective power of AI and digital technologies to root out inefficiencies, cutting costs and driving savings, redeploying the funds saved for growth. The blueprint for finding these levels of savings across the government already exists if we are willing to use them, versus the scorched earth approach that may grab headlines in the near term.
Achieving the goal of saving trillions without compromising essential federal services is a formidable challenge, and there is no shortage of suggestions coming from every direction. From cuts to foreign aid, to eliminating the penny, or limiting soap for the Air Force, everything’s on the table. And it’s important that DOGE considers the trade-offs and long-term ramifications of anything they might decide to cut.
I’m not here to advocate for cuts to one program over another. But what I can offer is this: a fact-based alternative to making budget cuts in a silo. What if you let the data do the “proposing” for you of where best to find inefficiencies or waste? That is what AI-driven procurement technologies could do for the government for inter-agency wide total procurement reform.
According to the Government Accountability Office, procurement accounts for a substantial portion of overall spending, with the government committing over $759 billion to contracts in 2023 alone. That vast expenditure — nearly one-eighth of total federal spending — represents a massive savings opportunity. Because right now, the government’s procurement and spending processes and systems are outdated and fragmented, resulting in overspending, inefficiency and waste.
For instance, we estimate that reliance on manual processes is costing the U.S. about $39 billion every year — nearly as much as we spend on USAID, which was targeted for elimination by DOGE. By adopting a comprehensive, modern total spend management solution, the government could mature its procurement function and streamline and automate its spending operations, unlocking significant savings and labor efficiencies without compromising essential services.
While procurement cost-cutting efforts are seemingly underway, such as the Procurement Co-Pilot, powered by the Hi-Def Initiative, which is aimed at aggregating the government’s spend data and using data-driven insights to better inform purchasing and contracting, there’s much to be discovered about how much it’s being utilized and prioritized. Just imagine if we could combine Co-Pilot’s insights with the vast trove of spend intelligence available to the private sector — Coupa’s own community contains $7 trillion worth of transactional data. We could surely find additional savings.
Procurement maturity — and a strategic approach to total spend management — is about more than just savings. It’s about total transformation of people and processes, including optimization and real-time waste and fraud detection using AI.
The federal government employs over two million individuals, with many performing manual, error-prone repetitive tasks every day that could be automated with technology. Time is undoubtedly wasted on mundane tasks like purchase orders, invoicing and expense approvals, all of which can be streamlined and autonomously automated. This will free up hours of employee productivity time that can then be reallocated to higher-value and more impactful work.
According to Bain & Company, autonomous procurement processes could save the world’s 5,000 largest businesses up to $86 billion annually. Based on the initial results we have driven for our private and public-sector customers, we anticipate the government could reduce spend by hundreds of billions per year by automating these tasks.
With growing federal support and adoption of AI technology and infrastructure across the country, including the administration creating a first of its kind “AI Czar,” David Sacks, there is no better case study in how AI could transform government than starting with its procurement processes and technologies.
For example, with contract intelligence, instead of individuals wasting hours reviewing hundreds and hundreds of pages of supplier and vendor contracts, AI could do it in seconds. AI could also be leveraged to analyze and extract key contract data and make specific clause language recommendations to help reduce risk and enhance resilience. Another example is fraud detection, where AI can be deployed to proactively detect and identify spend anomalies to prevent fraudulent and non-compliant government spending before it happens, with the potential to save billions every year.
With the government’s renewed focus on efficiency, modernizing, autonomizing and optimizing procurement, using the power of AI deserves to be at the top of the agenda. It will make DOGE’s ambitious goal of cutting $2 trillion in spending more attainable — and less presumptively political — to maximize the value of every taxpayer dollar spent.
Bill Evanow is vice president for federal at Coupa.
Copyright
© 2025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
Originally published The apolitical data-driven roadmap DOGE needs to save our nation trillions on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2025/04/the-apolitical-data-driven-roadmap-doge-needs-to-save-our-nation-trillions/ at Federal News Network
Originally published Federal News Network
Related Posts
GTSC Welcomes Monica Padron-Harris to Strategic Advisory Board
The Government Technology & Services Coalition (GTSC), the leading non-profit association for companies serving the federal homeland security mission, welcomes Monica Padron-Harris, former Senior IT Acquisition Advisor for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Office of Information Technology to its Advisory board. “GTSC is extremely pleased to welcome Monica to our Strategic Advisors. She has an […]
The post GTSC Welcomes Monica Padron-Harris to Strategic Advisory Board appeared first on HSToday.
Pentagon’s FutureG Office gearing up for new prototyping effort
Originally published Pentagon’s FutureG Office gearing up for new prototyping effort on April
NATO AI Modernization: Palantir’s Maven Smart System Acquisition
This article is part of our weekly DefenseTech Brief.NATO has taken a significant
About Us
To assist commercially facing small and startup technology companies, and help determine if there is value in engaging with defense, intelligence community.
Let’s Socialize
GTSC Welcomes Monica Padron-Harris to Strategic Advisory Board
Pentagon’s FutureG Office gearing up for new prototyping effort