Deep dive
CNBC reviewed House disbursement records that specifically name AI vendors and found at least $113,740 in identifiable spending between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026. ChatGPT accounted for $100,580 across 798 transactions — about 88% of the dollars and 96% of the transactions in the set. Anthropic’s Claude totaled $13,160 across 37 transactions.
Partisan split in the member-office slice: Democratic offices accounted for $54,165 in identified AI purchases versus $15,782 for Republican offices. ChatGPT purchases appeared in 44 Democratic and 27 Republican member offices. CNBC and follow-on coverage (including TechCrunch’s echo) stress that the dataset excludes free accounts, AI bundled into broader contracts such as Microsoft Copilot, and most Senate spending.
What the numbers do not prove
This is a vendor-name analysis of House disbursements, not a survey of staff workflows. Offices can use free ChatGPT or Claude tiers, Copilot seats buried in Microsoft agreements, or tools never itemized as “AI.” We are not inventing unnamed staffer quotes — the story’s force is the ledger, plus the policy irony that lawmakers debate AI rules while standardizing on a chat stack.
TechCrunch’s same-day write-up framed ChatGPT as Congress’s early favorite among paid tools visible in House records — useful corroboration of CNBC’s ledger without adding unverifiable anecdotes.