The Call to Create the Congressional Capacity and Technology Office

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BY AUBREY WILSON

Since 2023, POPVOX Foundation has been creating resources to help Members and staff in Congress feel confident and safe using cutting edge AI tools. Now in 2026, as I lead “AI-101” trainings for Congressional offices just beginning to use LLMs for the first time, Congress is falling further behind and is outpaced by industry, foreign peers, K Street, and the very entities throughout the Executive branch it is charged with overseeing.

I’ll be the first to emphasize that this is not a failure of effort. Congress has made real progress in recent years with the creation and continued work of the House Digital Service, the rollout of Microsoft Copilot, and the continuation of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional Hackathon. Ten years ago, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers described Congress as “a 19th-century institution often using 20th-century technology to respond to 21st-century problems.” The House has taken steps to change that status quo. Now, in this time of rapid technological change, being behind the adoption curve is no longer about inconvenient inefficiencies. Congress needs to act now before the gap of technological adoption and understanding becomes impossible to close.

Today, POPVOX Foundation is publishing a proposal to establish the Congressional Capacity and Technology Office (C-TECH). Just as Congress made the decision, decades ago, to give itself its own research capacity through CRS, its own budget analysis through CBO, and its own investigative capacity through GAO, the need for Congress to create C-TECH cannot be more material.

C-TECH is not another IT department. It is the change management, training, and strategic support function Congress has never had, modeled on the successful precedent of the Whistleblower Ombuds Office. Over its three-phased establishment, C-TECH starts in the House and scales across both chambers. It is built on a simple premise: emerging technology provides tools that – with proper training, support, and education – can augment the capacity of Members and staff to better serve the American people.

The proposal lays out exactly how to get there, what it would cost, and why the window to act is now.

POPVOX Foundation is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to helping Congress and other democratic institutions keep pace in a rapidly changing world. Learn more at popvox.org/ai.