Anthropic's $1 Government AI

Anthropic is offering its Claude AI model to all three branches of the US government for a nominal fee of $1 per agency annually. This initiative aims to broaden AI adoption across the federal sector, encompassing the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The offering includes Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government, with the latter supporting FedRAMP High workloads for sensitive, unclassified tasks.

This move directly challenges OpenAI's similar offering and underscores the intensifying competition among AI firms for government contracts. Anthropic's deal, facilitated through the General Services Administration (GSA), seeks to remove barriers to AI adoption and ensure federal workers can leverage advanced AI capabilities. The GSA will assist in integrating Claude into agency systems, providing setup and training.

By providing access at a minimal cost, Anthropic enables agencies to experiment with the technology before committing to long-term contracts. This initiative follows the Department of Defense awarding contracts worth up to $200 million to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI for AI development, highlighting the growing importance of AI in government applications.