AI for government contracting: what it can do and what stays with the owner

An AI assistant can invent a detail or misread one, such as a date, a place, a quantity or what a requirement asks for. It does not know the facts of your business unless it is given them, and it can only be as current as the version of the document it read.

That last point matters here. FAR 15.206(a) says that when the Government changes its requirements or terms and conditions, either before or after receipt of proposals, the contracting officer shall amend the solicitation, so a summary made from an earlier version can be out of date. An AI assistant can also sound sure when it is wrong: a fluent, confident answer is not evidence that it is right.

Check any claim an AI assistant makes against the notice itself, and treat the notice, not the summary, as the source. Dates, quantities, the place of performance and the way to respond are the details to check first, in the notice and in every amendment to it.

The reason is in how proposals are judged. FAR 15.305(a) says an agency evaluates competitive proposals and assesses their relative qualities solely on the factors and subfactors specified in the solicitation. The solicitation's own words are what a proposal is measured against, and a summary of them is not.

It cannot decide whether to bid. That decision turns on the work, the dates, what the business can take on and what it has done before, and it is the owner's. How to find federal contracts covers where notices are published and what to check before you respond.

It cannot know your size status or your program status. Those turn on the business's own facts and on the rules a notice names, so they are for the owner, with a free APEX Accelerator, SBDC or SCORE counselor or an attorney; the card just below this guide says where to ask. Federal contracts for any business explains the words.

And it cannot make a statement to the government in the business's name. A solicitation can have the offeror verify, by submitting its offer, that the representations and certifications posted in SAM that apply to the solicitation are current, accurate, complete and applicable to it (FAR 52.204-8(d)). That statement is the business's, as is every certification: the owner answers each one, and no tool can know whether it is true of the business.

It can write a first draft, and the owner owns the result. A useful draft is written from the business's own records, such as its capability statement, its past performance and facts the owner has confirmed, together with what the notice asks for. A draft that is not tied to those sources can state things about the business that are not true.

The owner reviews the draft, corrects it and submits it, because the business is the one making the offer. Your capability statement is the document the business already controls, in its own words, and a draft can lean on it.

Price, size, ownership, certifications and the signature are the business's own answers, so a careful draft leaves them to the owner.

Before you rely on one, ask four things.

1. Where do its answers come from: the notice itself, your own records, or only what the model remembers?
2. Does it show why it picked a notice? A reason that quotes the notice and your own words can be checked against both.
3. Does it say it is AI? Text written by an AI assistant should be labeled wherever you read it, so you know to check it.
4. Who sees what you type? Ask what the tool keeps and who receives it, and keep tax and bank numbers, passwords and login codes out of any AI tool's text box.

A tool that answers these plainly is easier to check, and checking stays the owner's job either way.

Firmenza is one worked example, and its AI assistant's answers carry the AI assistant label. Found by AI is a list beside your contract matches. Each night the AI assistant reads the new notices against the keywords and codes in your profile and the overview, core competencies and past performance in your capability statement, and picks the ones that may be about your work and that Firmenza's fixed rules did not match. Each pick says why in two quotes, one from the notice and one from your own words, and each quote is checked against its source before it is shown.

On a notice's page, In plain words is the AI assistant's short summary of the notice as published, and the notice itself is the source. Ask Firmenza, the AI assistant on every page, answers from Firmenza's own guides, with links to read more, and when its notes do not cover a question, it says so. Ask Firmenza, the AI assistant on every page says what it answers from.

On a notice you saved, the requirements checklist lists what the solicitation asks for, each row with the page it came from. Firmenza's rules list the sentences that read as requirements, and the AI assistant reads the same text and lists more, each with a quote from its page. Where the solicitation has Sections L and M, the AI assistant also sets them out in a table. Either can miss or misread a requirement, so check each one against the document.

Proposal drafts, and drafts of a response to a Sources Sought notice, are written by the AI assistant only from the notice's requirements, your capability statement, your past performance records and the facts you choose to use, with the source of every sentence shown. Where it has no source for a point, the draft says "Information needed from you" in place of a fact. You review and edit every draft, and you submit it yourself. Contract opportunity matches in Firmenza goes through these tools. Found by AI and proposal drafts are part of Pro and its trial; the pricing page says what Pro includes.

Found by AI, In plain words and the requirements checklist do not say whether to respond: that decision is yours. Found by AI leaves out any reason about size, a set-aside, eligibility or who may apply, and when the AI assistant reads a solicitation's requirements, it leaves size, set-aside, ownership and certification questions to the document's own words and to you.

In a draft, forms, certifications and representations, size status, pricing and signatures are marked "You answer this yourself" and are not drafted. Before a draft is marked final, you confirm the statement "I have read this draft, and I am responsible for what I submit." Firmenza's page on what its AI does and its blog post on how the AI works describe the rest.