On Capitol Hill, money is saying that ChatGPT is the AI tool of choice. New spending records show OpenAI’s chatbot has pulled far ahead of its rivals inside House offices. 

CNBC identified at least $113,740 in spending on named AI vendors between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026, the most recent data available.

Most of that money went to one place. ChatGPT accounted for $100,580 of that total across 798 transactions; about 88% of the dollars and 96% of the transactions reviewed.

Anthropic’s Claude came in second. Claude, ChatGPT’s closest chatbot rival, was a distant second, totaling $13,160 across 37 transactions.

ChatGPT pulled in almost eight times more spending than its nearest competitor. That’s not a rivalry. 

AI Spending

Democrats and Republicans don’t just disagree on policy. They disagree on tech spending too.

Even so, they show that at least a sixth of House members’ offices, and likely many more, are already using AI tools as lawmakers shape the industry’s future. 

But the spending split by party is lopsided. Democratic offices spent far more than their Republican counterparts. And the difference was more than triple. 

A lot of AI use in Congress never shows up in these records at all. Free accounts don’t count. Neither does AI baked into bigger software deals. 

Think Microsoft Copilot, which often comes bundled with other tools offices already pay for. The Senate isn’t part of this data at all. 

Its spending reports don’t break down vendors the same way House records do. So the real total AI footprint across Congress is likely much bigger than what these numbers show.

Also read: AI Apps Break Records: $1.1 Billion in Consumer Spending

Use Cases

So what are congressional aides doing with all this AI power? Quite a lot, it turns out.

They’re writing memos, summarizing dense bills, prepping materials before big hearings, and sorting through mountains of policy research. 

Some staffers even use it to draft social media posts and respond to messages from constituents.

One House member spoke about how his office uses the tools. For Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., AI helps with everything from research to social media posts and newsletters. 

But he was careful to note limits. All facts must be independently verified, and decisions need to be made by a person. 

He pointed to casework as an example, where AI might help organize requests, but a human still has to make the final call on things like Social Security or IRS matters.