Headline: CFTC leans on AI as staffing falls amid mounting crypto and prediction-market duties
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence and automation to fill gaps left by a shrinking workforce, Chairman Mike Selig told the House Agriculture Committee Thursday — even as the agency takes on major new responsibilities for digital assets and prediction markets.
Key points
- The CFTC has lost roughly a quarter of its staff since 2025 amid White House-driven federal workforce cuts, agency records show.
- To compensate, the agency is incorporating AI and automation — including broad use of Microsoft’s Copilot — into surveillance and investigative workflows.
- Despite the reductions, Selig said the agency is “running more efficiently and effectively” and called enforcement a “top priority.”
- The CFTC’s FY budget request sought only three additional enforcement hires (bringing enforcement headcount to 108), leaving the division still about 23% below its 2025 level of 140.
- The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act under Senate consideration would make the CFTC the primary regulator for non-securities crypto trading — including bitcoin and ether — increasing the agency’s remit.
- Prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have surged from transaction volumes measured in the millions to multiple billions, spurring scrutiny and allegations of insider trading tied to certain bets on U.S. military actions and government statements.
- Selig confirmed “numerous investigations ongoing” into prediction-market activity but declined to provide specifics. He emphasized regulated platforms are the first line of defense against fraud and manipulation, with the CFTC as a backstop.
- The commission itself is operating with a single posted commissioner: Selig. By statute the CFTC should have five commissioners (including two from the minority party). Selig said he will continue rulemaking even as a solitary commissioner and pledged to seek help from the committee if more qualified staff are needed.
- Committee leaders Glenn “GT” Thompson and Angie Craig plan to send a letter to the White House urging prompt nomination of commissioners. Craig warned the agency is “stretched too thin” and urged more staffing, funding and clear statutory authority.
Why it matters for crypto
If Congress elevates the CFTC’s role through legislation such as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the agency would be supervising trading in major crypto tokens that many market participants view as commodities. That expansion — combined with the explosive growth of prediction markets and their novel, fast-emerging contracts — raises enforcement and surveillance demands at a time when the CFTC’s personnel capacity has shrunk.
Selig stressed the agency’s “zero tolerance” approach to illicit activity and signaled automation and AI will be central tools as the CFTC tries to scale oversight without restoring pre-2025 headcounts.
UPDATE: Thompson and Craig will send a letter to the White House to encourage prompt filling of vacant commission seats.
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