#ai-procurement

#ai-procurement

In response to a question from Nextgov/FCW about how the initiative is helping to bring more AI tools into government, GSA Chief AI Officer and Data Scientist Zach Whitman said that, for those "wanting to see some level of adoption for experimentation purposes on low-risk use cases, this has provided a procurement pathway for a lot of these agencies who may have had early, light contact with some of these technologies."

The guidance from the Office of Management and Budget states that agencieslooking to buy AI systemsmust determine whether the models comply with what it calls two "unbiased AI principles" - "truth-seeking" and "ideological neutrality." The information they have to obtain will vary depending on the company's role in the software supply chain and the relationship between the company and the model developer, according to the guidance. Generally, the closer the company is to the model developer the more information should be available.

For five years, the federal government has been under a legal mandate to train acquisition professionals in using and buying artificial intelligence (AI). During that time, federal spending on AI has risen precipitously. As AI technology accelerates into the future, buying relevant, rapidly evolving capabilities requires foresight and understanding. Eighty percent of chief procurement officers (CPOs) surveyed plan to deploy AI tools for spend analytics, contract management and supplier selection over the next three years. Leaders are expecting that procurement operations will be radically better and faster than they are today.

The agreement covers both Grok 4 and Grok 4 Fast, xAI's advanced reasoning models, and includes dedicated engineering support for agencies adopting the tools, the GSA stated in a press release. Federal offices will also be able to pursue upgrade paths to enterprise subscriptions aligned with FedRAMP and Department of Defense security standards.

A central policy of President Donald Trump's second administration has been sweeping tariffs on imports from more than 90 countries, leading to uncertainty that has hung over global supply chains throughout 2025. The disruption has only recently subsided as the US has secured deals with major trading partners like the European Union, South Korea, and Japan, all striking deals that settled on a 15% tariff rate. Tariffs are still far higher in places like India and Brazil, both of which the Trump administration stamped with a 50% tariff rate this summer.

The General Services Administration has reaped a lot of attention from the enterprise agreements they have signed with artificial intelligence providers like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. GSA's arrangements with OpenAI and Anthropic set a price of $1-a-year per agency for access to their flagship AI products. The pact with Google announced today (Thursday) sets the price at 47 cents for a year for access to Gemini. Each of these agreements are part of OneGov, GSA's initiative for centralized software buys.