This profile focuses on the US Department of the Treasury (commonly known as “Treasury”). It provides a department-wide overview of Treasury and its relevance to AI and biosecurity, including the work of its principal offices and bureaus.

Overview

The US Department of the Treasury manages the federal government’s finances and public debt, administers the federal tax system through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and uses sanctions, financial intelligence, and investment screening to protect national security. It is also taking on a growing role in AI security. In June 2026, the White House directed Treasury to lead the establishment of an AI cybersecurity clearinghouse and to help develop a classified process for assessing advanced AI systems’ cyber capabilities. These new responsibilities, on top of its existing work on AI risks in the financial system, make Treasury an increasingly important place for work on AI policy.

Treasury’s AI-relevant work primarily involves managing AI risks in the financial sector, using financial tools to protect national security, and adopting AI in its own operations. On the financial side, it studies how AI affects financial institutions and coordinates the sector’s cybersecurity and resilience. On national security, it reviews foreign investments, restricts certain US investments abroad involving AI and other sensitive technologies, and uses sanctions, financial intelligence, and anti-money-laundering rules to counter technology-enabled threats. 

Internally, AI is used across Treasury, including at the IRS, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Since 2025, the department appointed a new Chief AI Officer, launched an AI Transformation Office, and published an enterprise AI strategy, compliance plan, and department-wide inventory of AI use cases. 

Treasury has a narrower role in biosecurity, focused on cases where biotechnology intersects with foreign investment, sensitive health or genetic data, sanctions, and the funding networks that support weapons programs. It does not run a broad biosecurity program, and its current outbound-investment regulations do not cover biotechnology as a distinct sector, but certain AI systems trained primarily on biological-sequence data can fall within those rules.

Background on Treasury

• Government context: Treasury is one of 15 executive departments in the US government; the Secretary is a member of the US president’s cabinet. Scott Bessent has served as Secretary of the Treasury since January 28, 2025; the Secretary sits in the President’s Cabinet and chairs both the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
• Mission: to maintain a strong economy and create economic and job opportunities by promoting the conditions that enable economic growth and stability at home and abroad, strengthen national security by combating threats and protecting the integrity of the financial system, and manage the US government’s finances and resources effectively.
• Main activities:
  • Administering the federal tax system through the IRS.
  • Managing federal payments, collections, cash, and public debt through the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and other Treasury offices.
  • Developing domestic and international economic, financial, and tax policy and coordinating financial-stability policy.
  • Administering economic sanctions, anti-money-laundering rules, and financial-intelligence programs.
  • Reviewing certain foreign investments through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and administering the Outbound Investment Security Program.
  • Coordinating cybersecurity and resilience for the financial-services sector, for which Treasury serves as the federal Sector Risk Management Agency.
• Budget: ~$16 billion in FY2025, including ~ $12.3 billion for the IRS.
• Staff: ~125,000 staff in 2025, including nearly 70,000 at the IRS.
• Brief history: Congress established the Department of the Treasury in 1789, with Alexander Hamilton as its first Secretary. Treasury initially collected revenue, managed the public debt, disbursed federal funds, and advised the government on financial policy. During the Civil War, its role expanded with the creation of the IRS, issuance of national paper currency, and establishment of a national banking system. In 2004, it created the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, bringing sanctions, financial intelligence, anti-money-laundering policy, and efforts to disrupt terrorist and proliferation financing under one office. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act established the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Office of Financial Research. In 2018, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act expanded and modernized CFIUS. Since 2023, Treasury has also developed the Outbound Investment Security Program, which regulates specified US investments in sensitive technologies in countries of concern.

Organizational structure

Treasury is led by a Secretary, who is presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed, and a Deputy Secretary (see all Treasury officials here). It’s organized into two main components: Departmental Offices, which primarily develop policy and manage department-wide functions, and seven operating bureaus, which carry out most of the department’s operational and regulatory work.

• Departmental Offices develop policy, advise senior leadership, coordinate interagency and international work, and manage Treasury-wide functions. They include Domestic Finance, International Affairs, Economic Policy, Tax Policy, and Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, among others.
• Operating bureaus make up 98% of the Treasury workforce and are responsible for carrying out specific operations assigned to the Department. They include the IRS, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), among others.

The line between policy and operational work isn’t clear-cut; some bureaus, like FinCEN, also play a big role in setting policy, and some Departmental Offices run major programs.

But the distinction is useful if you’re considering emerging technology work at Treasury: Departmental Offices are generally more relevant to policy development, interagency coordination, investment security, and department-wide AI governance, while bureaus offer more opportunities to work on AI deployment in tax administration, federal payments, bank supervision, fraud detection, and other large operational systems.

Treasury and AI policy

Treasury influences how financial institutions use and manage the risks of AI, restricts certain investments involving sensitive AI technologies, addresses AI-enabled financial crime, and sets rules for AI use within its own operations.

These authorities vary substantially in legal force. Some Treasury work relies mainly on research, convening, and voluntary guidance, particularly around financial-sector AI adoption. Other areas (e.g. outbound-investment controls, sanctions and anti-money-laundering requirements, OCC bank supervision, and governance of Treasury’s own systems) involve more direct regulatory or administrative authority.

Treasury’s AI work spans seven main areas:

• Governing AI in financial services: Treasury’s Domestic Finance offices and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) examine how AI affects financial institutions, markets, cybersecurity, and financial stability. Treasury has increasingly convened banks, technology companies, and regulators around AI adoption, including through its 2026 AI Innovation Series and voluntary Financial Services AI Risk Management Framework. FSOC and Treasury primarily coordinate across regulators rather than directly supervise the entire financial sector; individual regulators retain their own authorities. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an independent bureau within Treasury, directly supervises national banks and federal savings associations, including examining how AI affects bank supervision and risk management.
• Protecting financial infrastructure: As the federal agency responsible for coordinating financial-sector risk management, Treasury works on cybersecurity and resilience through the Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection. Its 2024 report on AI-specific cybersecurity risks addresses threats including fraud, reliance on third-party providers, data vulnerabilities, and differences in AI capabilities across financial institutions.
• Controlling sensitive investment: Treasury chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which can review certain foreign investments involving AI companies, semiconductors, computing infrastructure, critical technologies, and sensitive data. Treasury also administers the Outbound Investment Security Program, which prohibits or requires notification of specified US investments involving AI, semiconductors, and quantum technologies connected to China, Hong Kong, or Macau.
• Countering AI-enabled financial threats: The Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and related offices address AI-enabled fraud, cybercrime, sanctions evasion, and illicit finance. For example, FinCEN has issued guidance on deepfake-enabled fraud. These offices may also use machine learning and related analytical tools to identify suspicious activity, connect records, prioritize leads, and support intelligence or enforcement work.
• Deploying AI in federal financial systems: Treasury uses AI in tax administration, federal payments, fraud detection, financial research, internal knowledge management, and enterprise productivity. Its Treasury and Artificial Intelligence repository includes the January 2026 department-wide AI inventory, which listed 129 use cases across the IRS, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Office of Financial Research, and other components.
• Building internal AI governance: Since 2025, Treasury has appointed a Chief AI Officer, established the AI Transformation Office (AITO), and issued an AI Strategy and AI Compliance Plan. These arrangements support department-wide governance, training, procurement, shared tools, inventory management, and controlled testing.
• Supporting government-wide AI security efforts: In June 2026, President Trump’s Executive Order on AI Innovation and Security directed Treasury to lead the establishment of an AI cybersecurity clearinghouse and participate in a classified process for evaluating advanced AI systems’ cyber capabilities. In July, the White House launched GOLD EAGLE to coordinate this effort.

Recent AI developments

Since 2024, Treasury’s AI work has expanded across financial-sector policy, internal governance, investment security, and national-security coordination.

Treasury offices working on AI policy

Several offices are especially relevant for AI policy work at Treasury, ranging from department-wide AI governance and financial-sector policy to investment security, illicit finance, and the infrastructure needed to deploy AI across Treasury. This list is not comprehensive.

While less directly involved in AI policy work, the IRS and Bureau of the Fiscal Service run some of the government’s largest technology systems: the IRS holds sensitive tax and financial data on nearly every American, and Fiscal Service runs the payment systems most federal agencies use. This makes them frequent targets of cyberattacks, and both invest heavily in cybersecurity and fraud prevention. 

Treasury and biosecurity policy

Treasury’s biosecurity role is relatively narrow. It matters mainly where biotechnology, sensitive health or genetic data, and chemical or biological weapons programs intersect with foreign investment, sanctions, illicit finance, and national security. Treasury generally doesn’t regulate biological research, public health, or lab safety directly. Instead, it uses financial and investment authorities to address the money, transactions, companies, and data connected to these risks.

Its main biosecurity-related functions include:

• Reviewing sensitive foreign investments: Through CFIUS, Treasury can review certain foreign investments in US biotechnology and life-sciences companies for national security risks. This can include transactions involving sensitive health or genetic data or technologies connected to chemical or biological weapons.
• Using sanctions to disrupt weapons programs: Treasury can impose financial sanctions on people, companies, and networks involved in weapons-of-mass-destruction programs or in supplying them with money, equipment, or other support. For example, in 2024 Treasury sanctioned networks that supplied laboratory equipment and other goods to Russian institutes associated with chemical and biological weapons programs.
• Tracking and disrupting the financing of weapons programs: Treasury works to identify the financial and supply networks that support weapons proliferation and uses tools such as financial intelligence, anti-money-laundering rules, and information from financial institutions to help disrupt them. This work focuses on the money and transactions behind weapons programs (rather than on regulating biological research itself).
• Restricting some US investment abroad: Treasury’s Outbound Investment Security Program restricts certain US investments involving semiconductors, quantum technologies, and AI. Biotechnology is not currently a separate covered sector, although some AI systems trained primarily on biological-sequence data can fall under the rules. The Trump administration has also directed Treasury to consider expanding outbound-investment restrictions to biotechnology.

Recent biosecurity developments

Treasury is not a central biosecurity agency, but several developments show how its financial and investment authorities can apply to biological risks.

Treasury offices working on biosecurity policy

Biosecurity-related work at Treasury is concentrated in a small number of offices focused on investment security, sanctions, financial intelligence, and disrupting the financing of weapons programs.

Working at Treasury

Treasury hires from a wide range of backgrounds, including economics, public policy, law, finance, national security, intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, and information technology. For emerging technology work, roles can include developing AI or financial sector policy, reviewing sensitive investments, analyzing illicit finance networks, coordinating cybersecurity, supervising banks, or building technology used in tax administration and federal payments.

Jobs vary substantially across Treasury. Departmental Offices tend to have more policy, economic analysis, rulemaking, legal, and interagency-coordination roles. Operating bureaus such as the IRS, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, OCC, and FinCEN run large regulatory and operational programs and generally have more roles involving technology, data, supervision, enforcement, and program implementation.

For national security work, particularly relevant offices include the Offices of Investment Security (OIS) and Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). TFI recruits people with backgrounds ranging from finance and regional expertise to intelligence, law, economics, and technology; some national-security and intelligence positions require security clearances.

How to get entry-level jobs

For students and early-career applicants, Treasury offers several routes:

• Pathways Internships and Recent Graduates: government-wide programs for qualifying students and recent graduates. Eligibility, location, conversion potential, and security requirements depend on the individual vacancy.
• International Affairs Junior Fellowship: a two-year program for new college graduates to work shaping international economic policy in Treasury’s Office of International Affairs.
• Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) Junior Fellowship: a two-year program for new college graduates to work at the Office of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to monitor risks to US financial stability.
• Treasury Headquarters Student Internship Program: Offers spring, summer, and fall placements across Departmental Offices in Washington, DC. The program is currently unpaid and open to qualifying high school, undergraduate, and graduate students; opportunities are posted on USAJOBS.
• Law student internships: Treasury’s Office of General Counsel offers volunteer summer internships in offices working on areas including banking, enforcement and intelligence, international affairs, tax, OFAC, and financial research.
• AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship: For scientists and engineers with advanced degrees. Treasury has hosted AAAS fellows in its Office of Investment Security, including fellows working there in 2025–26. Placements vary by year.

For full-time positions, see Treasury Careers and Treasury vacancies on USAJOBS. It’s also worth checking the career pages of individual bureaus of interest (listed on this page).

See our federal agency application advice for guidance on USAJOBS, federal resumes, interviewing for federal positions, and more.

Further reading