Anthropic and nonprofit partner to streamline benefits administration with AI

"The organizations are working together to develop an AI-enabled solution to improve the accuracy and timeliness of benefits service delivery under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Jana Rhyu, vice president of product at Code for America, announced Friday at a summit hosted by the organization in Chicago last week."

"The SNAP Policy Navigator tool is built on federal regulations, state manual selections, official policy directives and other documents to help caseworkers "quickly and accurately get an answer to [a] very specific policy question" when they are working with clients, said Michael Lai, who leads state and local government AI at Anthropic."

"The tool leverages Anthropic's Claude chatbot and is built on a model context protocol to ensure a secure two-way connection between data sources and AI applications, Rhyu said. A caseworker can input a simple, policy-based question, such as how a client's change in income or a new federal policy could impact their benefits, and the tool outputs an up-to-date response in plain language with cited sources and suggested next steps."

"The user "gets clarity on policy, not a decision on overall eligibility. The decision stays with [them]," she said."

Code for America is partnering with Anthropic to develop AI-enabled tools for public benefits administration nationwide. The collaboration will create a SNAP Policy Navigator that uses federal regulations, state manual selections, official policy directives, and related documents to help caseworkers quickly and accurately answer specific policy questions. The tool uses Anthropic’s Claude chatbot and a model context protocol to support a secure two-way connection between data sources and AI applications. Caseworkers can ask policy-based questions about changes in income or new federal policies, and the tool returns up-to-date plain-language responses with cited sources and suggested next steps. The tool provides policy clarity while keeping overall eligibility decisions with the caseworker or client.

Read at Nextgov.com