GSA pilots AI for regulatory streamlining
The General Services Administration plans to run an artificial-intelligence-based pilot program to help speed up how agencies procure innovative and commercial solutions.
The General Services Administration plans to run an artificial-intelligence-based pilot program to help speed up how agencies procure innovative and commercial solutions.
The pilot will use a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation to help GSA learn how to streamline the acquisition process, fast-track vendor selection timelines, simplify contract administration for innovative commercial items.
FEDSIM is working with GSA’s Technology Transformation Service and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the sponsoring customer, to find a software-as-a-service solution that CMS regulatory staff can use to modernize regulatory workflows.
The current process is “burdensome,” according to the solicitation because much of the work involves manually checking emails and spreadsheets, which do not support the approval and routing of documents, identification of outdated regulations, analysis of public comments and elimination of duplicative language. It is also unable to help develop cost estimates of regulatory changes or spot conflicting, outdated or interdependent agency regulations.
Goals of the pilot include improving the workflow by supporting document management and e-discovery functions and providing access to machine-readable federal regulations and agency guidance.
Natural language processing tools should be able to recognize similar documents and key terms, while clustering and grouping functions should include topic discovery, correction of mislabeled items and automated tagging. AI-based prediction should be able to identify and score the regulations, spot outdated ones and compare implementation costs.
The pilot should accommodate 20 users and include 10 terabytes of data capacity. In their submissions, companies must explain how their solution pushes the state of the art and submit their commercial price list.
Read the full solicitation here.
A version of this article was first posted to Washington Technology, a sibling site to GCN.