OpenAI and the U.S. General Services Administration have announced a new 27-month OneGov agreement designed to broaden AI access across federal, state, local and tribal governments while lowering costs and expanding cyber-defense support. The arrangement eliminates the normal $15-per-user monthly license fee for eligible public-sector organizations, sets that fee to $0, offers 50% off usage costs and provides enhanced Daybreak cyber-defender options for government security teams.
The OneGov agreement runs from October 1, 2026, through December 31, 2028, and extends eligibility beyond the federal workforce to include state, local and tribal employees. OpenAI said the expansion raises potential eligibility to roughly 23 million public-sector workers in the United States; more than one million government employees already had access under earlier agreements. The package is offered with no minimum commitment, giving agencies flexibility over adoption and spending.
Key commercial terms in the agreement include waived per-user license fees and a 50% discount on usage charges for eligible organizations. In addition, OpenAI will approve every verified government entity for Daybreak Blue at 50% off standard commercial pricing and scale training and enablement to help cyber defenders adopt the capability. Daybreak Red remains available for advanced vulnerability research, exploit validation and red-teaming at standard commercial prices.
OpenAI also outlined practical support intended to ease procurement and deployment. Participating organizations can expect buyer guidance, usage estimates, spend controls, onboarding assistance, FinOps guidance, webinars and an expanded Government Academy. On data handling and deployment, OpenAI said ChatGPT Enterprise will not use business data — including inputs or outputs — to train or improve OpenAI models, and that participating organizations will retain protections associated with their chosen eligible services.
The announcement highlights early public-sector use cases that informed the expansion. OpenAI cited Daybreak access improving the speed and quality of vulnerability research and malware analysis for cyber defenders. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used the tools to accelerate literature reviews, producing most initial reports in under 30 minutes and reporting productivity gains from 92% of participating experts. Georgia’s Department of Revenue reduced the time to digitize a tax form from as much as two weeks to about 15 minutes. North Carolina’s Department of State Treasurer leveraged ChatGPT to identify millions of dollars in potential unclaimed property. And Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used ChatGPT to compress preliminary fusion-research work that previously took months into hours.
Cyber defense is a central focus of the OneGov expansion. Under the package, Daybreak Blue is intended to help defenders across emergency response, transportation, public health, utilities and other critical systems adopt model-assisted workflows and surface vulnerabilities earlier. Daybreak Red remains available for advanced red-team activities and deep vulnerability research at standard commercial pricing. OpenAI positioned this work as an extension of its Daybreak for Frontline Defenders initiative and noted that the announcement builds on a separate $1 billion global commitment to subsidized access, training, technical support and partnerships for frontline cyber defenders disclosed the prior week.
For agencies considering adoption, OpenAI directed interested government organizations to contact its government team to register interest and learn more about eligibility, pricing and purchasing options. The company also scheduled a practical overview webinar, “OpenAI OneGov 2.0: What Government Leaders Need to Know,” for Monday, September 14, 2026, at 11:15 a.m. ET.
OpenAI framed the agreement as a way to give public servants access to best-in-class AI capabilities while providing safeguards, cost predictability and operational support. By lowering direct license costs, offering usage discounts and expanding cyber-defense tools and training, the OneGov agreement aims to make it easier for government organizations to experiment with and adopt AI responsibly. OpenAI and the GSA say those combined elements can help make government work faster, easier, safer and more reliable, and enable public servants to shape how AI is used in government contexts.
As agencies evaluate the OneGov agreement and its Daybreak offerings, the package’s practical supports and assurance statements on data use are likely to be central to procurement and security reviews. The extended eligibility and discounted pricing may accelerate broader adoption across state, local and tribal governments, while the cyber-defender provisions seek to strengthen protections for critical public systems as agencies bring AI into operational use.
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