U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Enterprise Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

Purpose

HSWERX, in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Technology Transfer & Commercialization Branch (T2C), will host a series of events on behalf of the United States Coast Guard (USCG) to find the best of breed solution(s) for an interactive information retrieval platform using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to enhance workforce efficiency. This effort is a continued development of the USCG project called Ask Hamilton, which is a functioning Proof of Concept (PoC) for several use cases which USCG would like to scale.

Objective

The objective is to develop an enterprise-level, interactive information retrieval application leveraging GenAI capabilities for USCG. The envisioned solution aims to assist USCG personnel by enhancing operational efficiency through advanced functionalities such as:

• intelligent information retrieval
• agentic workflows
• reasoning capabilities
• multimodal retrieval and generation
• knowledge graphs
• secure document upload within a private workspace

This solution/tool will serve as a scalable GenAI-enabled platform accessible across the entire USCG enterprise, supporting a wide array of mission needs. This solution not only holds the potential to significantly enhance the operational capabilities of USCG personnel but may also serve as a model for broader adoption across DHS and other government agencies seeking similar AI-driven efficiencies. The solution team will need to make customer data ready for the tool including testing the overall solution.

The scope of this effort is to complete development of “foundational information retrieval” capabilities, which spans collecting and summarizing factual datapoints from within a (single or multiple) document(s) (including complex data presentation such as embedded tables and graphics).

Background

Ask Hamilton enables USCG personnel to quickly retrieve policies, processes, and directives to get the answers they need, all with the confidence of operating within a safe and secure data environment that’s purposefully configured for USCG users and USCG data sets. Ask Hamilton leverages an approach called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), which is coupled with a Large Language Model (LLM) to generate new content grounded on facts derived from USCG-specific documents, thereby ensuring a USCG-specific user experience. This effort will enable the Ask Hamilton team to transform the way USCG personnel interact with their foundational policy and process documentation, reducing the churn between identifying a question and taking action on its answer.

Why You Should Participate

The Collaboration Event (CE) is designed to provide insights to ensure that potential partners understand the problem set(s) fully and to increase the likelihood of matching their technologies with end user needs. This CE is also an opportunity for attendees to network and form partnerships that may provide a more comprehensive solution.

Event Timeline

Phase 1 – June 26, 2025 – Collaboration Event: HSWERX will host the CE with government, industry, academic, and laboratory partners focused on DHS needs. During this event, government end users will interact with potential partners and further communicate operational needs, performance goals, and other desired criteria.

Tentative Agenda

(All times listed are ET) 


8:30–9:00: Participants Arrive and Check-In

9:00–9:05: T2C & HSWERX Welcome Remarks 


9:05–9:30: USCG Welcome & Problem Set  


9:30–10:15: Current Challenges Breakout  


10:15–10:30: Break  


10:30–11:30: Ways to Overcome Challenges Breakout  


11:30–1:00: Lunch (on your own)  


1:00–2:30: Problem Statement Development  


2:30–2:45: Break  


2:45–4:00: Problem Statement Briefs  


4:00–4:05: Voting  


4:05–4:20: Tech Pitches

4:20–4:30: Path Forward

Note: Agenda is subject to change.

Additional information regarding follow-on efforts will be posted to this site following the Collaboration Event. 

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How You Can Participate

Government, Industry, Academia, and National Labs Attendees:

Request to Attend (RTA) the Collaboration Event (CE): Click Here to RTA (NLT June 20, 2025, 11:59 PM ET) 

Questions?

For event-related questions, please contact Bridget Bailey: bbailey@hswerx.org

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