We have been hearing from government agencies that they are receiving more requests that appear to be written or sent via artificial intelligence – and poorly written at that. Federal agencies called out the Heritage Foundation, in particular. So, we at Brechner ran a quick little inquiry.

We downloaded the FOIA request log from the U.S. Department of Education for July and ran the text of the requests through Pangram, an AI detector. Of the 223 requests, 93 were less than 50 words, so we couldn’t test those (Pangram requires a minimum 50 words). Of the 130 we tested longer than 50 words, 39% were noted as 100% written by AI and 11% partially written by AI. Even assuming the 93 short requests were all human written, that means at least 29% were AI-crafted to some extent. Further, we noted the average word length for AI-crafted requests was 270 words, compared to 130 words for non-AI-crafted requests. And, of the AI-crafted requests, 83% incorporated long lists of records sought, which could be deemed unduly burdensome and take an inordinate of time and copy fees – not good for the agency or requester.

We also noted that commercial requesters were less likely to use AI (20%), as well as journalists (40%). Half the “Other” requesters used it, and 71% of education users used AI. Makes sense: Expert users rely on their tried-and-true templates and have little need for AI, while inexperienced requesters may rely on AI more. We looked back in time and noticed some AI-crafted requests in 2025, but very few before that. By the way, requests submitted by the Heritage Foundation, along with FOIA Buddy and other frequent filers, came out as 100% human written. That goes to show that AI isn’t needed to send out a lot of requests. We will be digging into this with deeper research over the next several months.

Here’s why this matters: In response to the increase in these requests, state legislatures have started considering laws that would restrict the flow of information, including Indiana’s law allowing agencies to ignore AI-crafted requests, and New Jersey’s bill banning requests from commercial users. In our opinion, those aren’t the best solutions. Instead, better educate requesters on best practices, as the Virginia Coalition for Open Government does. Institute independent information commissions to settle disputes over unduly burdensome requests, as Connecticut does. Improve records management systems and proactively post commonly requested records. Then, perhaps AI won’t be so scary.

Posted: November 2, 2026
Category: Brechner News