It's noteworthy that GSAi was in development before Musk and company showed up. In fact, the GSA had been working with a number of agencies to develop chatbot-like interfaces, per Wired. The Department of Treasury and the Department of Health and Human Services were both in talks to deploy chatbots both internally and for outward-facing platforms, and the Department of Education was also working with the GSA on a chatbot project designed for "support purposes" within the agency.

Those chatbots had not been deployed on account of being "janky," per one employee. So, of course, DOGE just went ahead and rolled that thing out to people. Also, it seemed like the intention of those projects were to build a tool that could help facilitate employee work, not replace thousands of staff who were abruptly cut. In the case of the GSA, it's likely that at least some of the people let go are the very ones who were building the GSAi tool that is now being deployed in their wake. Something tells me their skills are more useful than a chatbot that can draft an email.