AI & Data Exchange 2026: Casey Mulligan on driving continual processes improvements

Here are some key points from the article summarized in an unordered list:

Regulatory Analysis Bottleneck: A single, knowledgeable employee in the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration (SBA) was responsible for analyzing proposed federal rules on their impact on small businesses via a proprietary software tool based on STATA. This led to a backlog due to the individual’s inability to process the high volume of rules alone.
Development of Sextant Tool: Casey Mulligan, now chief economist and regulatory officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, collaborated with AI to re-develop the analysis tool in HTML and JavaScript, creating “Sextant.” This new tool is accessible via a web page and can be used by anyone in the staff to alleviate the bottleneck.
AI’s Role in Data Processing: The Office of Advocacy has embraced AI to enhance its data processing capabilities, which helps in generating reports, avoiding syntax errors, and creating documents and reports more efficiently.
Fact-Checking and Interagency Communication: AI tools assist in fact-checking and improving communication between federal agencies by providing accuracy scores, cross-referencing information, and reducing misunderstandings.
Enhancing Meeting Management: An AI tool developed in Python helps Mulligan organize and keep track of meetings and priorities by expanding meeting notes and providing searchable databases for easy follow-up on commitments and priorities.
Future Plans for AI: The Office of Advocacy aims to implement AI tools across more of its processes, capitalizing on AI’s data-heavy capabilities to increase overall productivity and streamline workflows.