While the mysteries surrounding artificial intelligence and its effectiveness continue to be debated, the U.S. government recently made it clear – AI should be utilized to help reduce veteran suicides.
Recently passed fiscal year funding bills to support the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2026 budget called for the VA to use “further innovative tools,” including AI to pinpoint veterans showing high levels of suicidal ideation.
Two different versions of VA’s fiscal year funding package were approved by both the House and the Senate months ago, but the full-year appropriations bill didn’t receive its full stamp of approval by Congress until last week when the government shutdown finally ended.
President Trump signed the bill, labeled the FY26 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill, into law on Nov. 12. The bill designates more than $115 billion for veteran healthcare. Of that, about $698 million was earmarked for VA’s suicide prevention program.
For several years, VA has wrestled with ways to decrease the veteran suicide rate. Based on its reports, about 6,500 veterans die by suicide every year – that’s 17 per day. And the numbers haven’t budged much since 2008, when the department was spending about $4.4 million on ways to reduce suicide.
More recently, VA has turned to AI for solutions to the suicide crisis, using technology such as machine learning to identify veterans at risk. With the passing of the 2026 funding bill, and support from the government, VA’s opportunity to explore more AI options to help veterans has been opened.
Real Time Stats to Reduce Risk
The House Appropriations Committee noted in a recent report while it finds VA’s present suicide prevention programs to be effective, it supports exploring modern technology to prevent more veterans from taking their own lives.
“There is a significant need to improve early suicide indicators and detection using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies that improve operational efficiency and effectiveness throughout veteran service delivery,” the report states.
The committee believes real time statistics could help many veterans find the mental health care they need.
The report went on to say, “The improve veteran service delivery, the Committee encourages the Department to evaluate the use of omnichannel technologies to improve identification of at-risk veterans. The Department may consider using all government service delivery channels with omnichannel capabilities and real-time analytics to ensure that interactions with a veteran can be used to gain appropriate insights that help the Department better identify veterans at-risk in real time and allow for the proper use of resources and decisive actions to be taken.”
In addition, the committee is supportive of VA continuing to find ways to predict possible suicides.
“Suicide is a complex issue that requires a comprehensive and innovative solution,” the report states.
AI As Supplement to Healthcare
The Senate panel would also like to see more utilization of the Recovery Engagement and Coordination for Health-Veteran Enhancement Treatment, also known as REACH VET. Launched in 2017, the machine learning program runs a scan across a veteran’s medical record flagging specific data for patients in the top 0.1 percent level of suicide risk.
More recently, VA has upgraded REACH VET to pinpoint additional red flags, such as military sexual assault and spousal abuse, but has eliminated ethnicity and race as possible data points.
Since the department works with many agencies and nonprofit groups outside VA, it is encouraging those programs to implement AI and other new technologies to reduce veteran suicides. While a computer can never truly replicate human interaction, AI could be used to train Veteran Crisis Line responders.
VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz recently told Military.com that AI-driven tools allow mental health providers to quickly intervene on a veteran’s behalf.
“Because these tools are integrated with clinical workflows, these alerts give healthcare providers real-time alerts and decision support,” Kasperowicz said.
The Senate panel’s report also stated, “The Committee is aware of additional predictive data analytics and machine learning tools that may help at-risk veterans before a crisis arises. The Committee encourages VA to use predictive data analytics and machine learning more broadly across the system to identify veterans with suicidal ideations and better deliver treatment.”
With widespread reductions in the federal workforce, including VA’s initial goal to eliminate 80,000 employees earlier this year, concerns about replacing human workers with AI came to the forefront. While it’s unlikely VA would use AI chatbots to replace licensed therapists, some veterans voiced concern about who and what they would be interacting with when they needed urgent mental health treatment.
However, Kasperowicz told Military.com the healthcare system plans to only use AI as a supplement to direct care from providers.
“AI-enabled resources are used as supplementary tools to support therapists, help train early intervention, quickly connect to peers, and facilitate connections with VHA’s caring staff – not replace them,” Kasperowicz said. “Across the VA, personal relationships are the primary pathway for restoring hope and healing.”
While AI could be confusing to some veterans initially, VA officials believe as the technology improves, it could also help mental health researchers determine better ways to help veterans.
“The VA plans to maximize all resources,” Kasperowicz said, “including the use of AI for suicide prevention, to enhance predictive models, increase collaboration with researchers, and develop new tools to support care providers in delivering personalized care to veterans.”
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