https://k4i.com/tags/maven/ Recent content in Maven on k4i.com Hugo en-us Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://k4i.com/maven-and-usai-what-mature-federal-ai-acquisition-actually-looks-like/ Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://k4i.com/maven-and-usai-what-mature-federal-ai-acquisition-actually-looks-like/ <p>Most of GAO&rsquo;s April 2026 report on federal AI acquisitions (GAO-26-107859) documents failure modes—programs that didn&rsquo;t document lessons learned, contracts that lacked AI-specific terms, programs retired without institutional postmortems. Two acquisitions stand apart as comparative benchmarks: DOD&rsquo;s Maven program and GSA&rsquo;s USAi platform. The report uses them to illustrate what AI acquisition looks like when agencies have had time to learn from their own mistakes.</p> <p><strong>Maven</strong></p> <p>Project Maven is DOD&rsquo;s longest-running high-profile AI acquisition. Managed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, it uses machine learning and computer vision to analyze geospatial imagery and identify potential targets for human assessment. It has had a complicated history—including a period of public controversy over its AI ethics implications—but from an acquisition standpoint it represents an accumulation of hard-won institutional knowledge.</p>