WASHINGTON — The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy convened a briefing on Saturday with chief information officers from several federal agencies to outline the terms of a forthcoming executive order that would restore and expand government access to Anthropic's Claude AI products, according to people familiar with the matter. The development follows days of intensive drafting work and comes as the administration seeks to accelerate AI adoption across civilian agencies before the summer recess.

The executive order, first reported in draft form on Friday, is designed to cut through procurement red tape that has slowed federal uptake of commercial large language models. Under the proposed framework, agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the General Services Administration would be cleared to deploy Claude for a range of internal tasks, from document summarisation to citizen-services chatbots, subject to data-handling restrictions.

Anthropic executives participated in Saturday's briefing via secure video conference, outlining the company's existing FedRAMP authorisation status and the additional security controls it is prepared to implement. The San Francisco-based AI company has been in discussions with federal procurement officials since early 2026 and views the executive order as a validation of its safety-first positioning relative to competitors.

The move is likely to intensify competition among AI model providers for lucrative government contracts. OpenAI and Google DeepMind both hold existing agreements with various federal bodies, and industry analysts expect rival companies to lobby swiftly for comparable access provisions. The executive order is expected to be signed in the coming week, with implementation guidance to follow from the Office of Management and Budget.

Civil liberties advocates have signalled they will scrutinise the order closely, particularly provisions governing how Claude-generated outputs may be used in administrative decisions affecting citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement Saturday that it was seeking a copy of the draft text and intended to publish a formal assessment before the order is signed.