This article was last updated 0 months ago and may not represent current law.
On 25 March 2024, the Cabinet Office published PPN 02/24 Improving Transparency of AI use in Procurement (PPN). It has since been reissued as PPN 017, to fit the Procurement Act 2023, which applies to procurements commenced on or after 24 February 2025 (PPN 02/24 still applies to anything started before then). The Cabinet Office says the update is to the terminology and is not a change in policy, so what I wrote in 2024 still holds, and I have updated the references below. The PPN applies to all central government departments, their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies, and other contracting authorities may choose to follow it.
The PPN acknowledges that AI is becoming increasingly prevalent in the delivery of services. It notes that where AI is likely to be used in the delivery of the contract, commercial teams may want suppliers to declare this and provide further details. To assist with this, Annex B of the PPN suggests optional, non-scored questions about the use of AI, for inclusion in the tender documents. These questions aim to prompt suppliers to disclose:
- Whether they used AI to develop their bid responses.
- If AI is likely to be involved in delivering the contracted services.
Using AI to write a bid is not prohibited, and the PPN accepts that it may help suppliers to bid for more contracts. It does tell commercial teams to do more due diligence where AI has been used (clarification questions, site visits or supplier presentations, for example), to allow more time in the procurement for that, and to put controls in place so that suppliers do not use confidential tender documents to train AI tools.
Some example questions are:
Have you used AI or machine learning tools, including large language models, to assist in any part of your tender submission? This may include using these tools to support the drafting of responses to Award questions.
Yes ロ No ロ Please provide details: ………………
Where AI tools have been used to support the generation of Tender responses, please confirm that they have been checked and verified for accuracy: Yes ロ No ロ
Challenging procurement decisions is something which I have been involved in several times for clients, alongside expert counsel, although I don’t run disputes myself now and would refer a challenge to one of my Nexa colleagues, who will quote their own fee. Notably, the AI guidance suggests the questions to be non-scoreable, but in the future one can imagine challenges being made because of AI or its use in either the tender documents or the contract itself.
Written by Steven Mather, a business solicitor acting on company sales and purchases. This is general information about the law, not legal advice on your situation. Law correct as at .
