Siri, Alexa, Monica, Claude—we love naming Artificial Intelligence (AI) bots with human names. The General Services Administration (GSA) joined the trend with their new tool, CODY. CODY, which is based on the Irish term for “helpful one,” is a new procurement automation tool built to streamline procurement processes at GSA. GSA announced recently that CODY is available for use across the federal government. With the recent Executive Order (EO) calling for the massive expansion of procurement under GSA, they’re going to need all the help they can get.
While this bot is to be used by GSA officials and other federal agencies, the software identifies information about vendors that will drive contract decisions, so it’s important we understand what this tool is and how it works.
AI has been at the forefront of the federal government’s strategy over the past few years, and the Trump Administration plans to continue forging ahead. Three years in the making, CODY is an AI tool built to automate the pre-award process.
It works by aggregating prerequisite data into a checklist to see if prospective contractors are meeting all the GSA requirements. In a Youtube video covering CODY training, this function was called the “Contractor Responsibility Report and Offer Checklist”. The data is pulled from several federal data sites such as SAM.gov, DSBS.sba.gov, USASpending.gov, and FPDS.gov. CODY also ensures there is no active federal debt against a vendor, and no exclusionary or responsibility cautions.
The idea is to eliminate the time Contracting Officers (COs) spend in the pre-award process ensuring vendors are hitting all requirements. We haven’t seen much discussion from GSA yet on how they are actively using it now for programs such as the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS), but we can reasonably expect they will begin using it before offers are accepted if they aren’t already.
CODY was built using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology, which essentially means software robots are used to automate repetitive and rule-based tasks.
GSA is now sharing the code used to create CODY with other agencies that use RPA in their systems. Other agencies can use CODY to streamline their acquisition processes, but as we’ll discuss below, their procurement responsibilities may be moved over to GSA soon.
Recently, the Trump Administration announced they plan to house the procurement of most common goods and services including Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) under GSA.
GSA already is home to the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Program and GWACs such as 8(a) STARS, Alliant 2, VETS 2, Polaris, etc. But there’s discussion of them taking on additional GWACs such as NASA SEWP and the National Institute of Health’s CISO-SP4.
This huge update plus the new administration’s mission to make procurement more efficient means we can expect to see more of CODY and other AI tools to aid in the acquisition process.
With tools like CODY, and initiatives to crack down on the minimum sales requirement and cut costs in GSA, GSA Schedule maintenance is crucial. As GSA consultants, we have started to see contractors whose GSA Schedules are at risk of cancellation because they are not meeting their terms and conditions, or requirements such as minimum sales. Some COs are even canceling contracts if your main POC isn’t responsive enough, regardless of contract performance.
If you don’t have a dedicated contract administrator for your contract who is experienced in GSA Schedule management, now is the time to find someone. You can hire someone in-house, or hire a GSA Schedule consultant who can help take care of your contract and mitigate the risk of contract cancellation.
If you have questions about your contract, or need help managing it, our expert consultants are here to help.