Agency data leads worry about staff capacity to tackle statutory requirements, survey finds

Agency chief data officers and their teams are aiming to get government data ready to power artificial intelligence programs and are increasingly taking on a larger role in deploying that technology — but many have lost staff needed to do so, according to a new report. 

Among the 189 CDO and other data leader respondents to the annual survey conducted by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Data Foundation, about 40% said they had lost six or more employees last year. 

Nearly 60% of CDOs said they currently have five or fewer staff total, and the number of CDOs reporting staff of 11 or more went down from 28% in 2024 to 14% in 2025.  

The number of contracting staff also went down, according to the report, and many leadership positions at the top of these teams were vacant or filled by acting officials last year due to layoffs, resignations and retirements.

Capacity is a “sleeper risk” that needs to be monitored, said Nick Hart, the president and CEO of the Data Foundation, “because if you get below a certain threshold or unexpectedly lose too much capacity, it’s hard to replace that quickly.”

Still, the CDO role is a relatively recent function in the government, set up in law just over six years ago. That means five or fewer employees may still be more staff than many CDO offices reported in earlier surveys, said Hart. 

Some CDOs told the Data Foundation that they are concerned about their ability to fulfill core statutory requirements because of capacity constraints. 

AI integration is increasingly becoming part of CDO’s jobs within the government, the Data Foundation found. The CDO Council included promoting AI-ready data, connecting government data to AI and workforce readiness among the fiscal 2026 goals posted on its website. 

Implementation of the OPEN Government Data Act is forging ahead too, with key deadlines coming this fall that are intended to make data.gov a better resource for open data with common metadata across the government, said Hart. 

“When the open government data Act became law, there was no guarantee that it was going to be implemented well. The guidance came out relatively slowly,” he said.

“But… the CDO function has matured remarkably over the last six to seven years,” he noted. “The data leaders that are in those positions have had a lot of change over that period of time, but they seem to be in a moment where they're ready to continue leading for the AI and open data movements. However, it's very clear that they need to be resourced effectively [and] have the capacity and clarity to continue moving forward.”