Bringing Common Sense Back: FAR Part 10 Rewrite and the Future of AI in Federal Procurement

Real Costs of Technology Gap Between Public and Private Sectors

For decades, the pace of technological advancement in the private sector has far outpaced the government’s ability to keep up. Consider this: when FAR Part 10 was first introduced in the late 1980s, the internet was still a military curiosity. By the time cloud computing became mainstream in the early 2010s, federal procurement teams were still issuing paper RFPs, faxing questions to vendors, and requiring CDs of proposal submissions.

The private sector, meanwhile, swiftly moved through digital transformation—embracing SaaS, automating workflows, and increasingly embedding AI into everything from logistics to customer service. This gap between public and private sector agility has real costs: delayed mission outcomes, higher contract failure rates, ballooning oversight burdens, and billions of dollars in missed savings and revenue leakage.

The FAR Part 10 Rewrite: A Reset on How We Understand the Market

The proposed changes to FAR Part 10 acknowledge this reality. Historically, market research was a compliance formality—often reduced to minimal outreach, legacy vendor consultations, or recycled requirements. The new guidance reframes it as a strategic, forward-looking exercise, empowering acquisition professionals to actively scout the market for best-in-class innovations before finalizing requirements.

Tools that didn’t exist five years ago—like contract risk scoring, automated obligation tracking, or real-time clause deviation detection—are now baseline features. 

This is not just semantics. The changes would push agencies to engage earlier with solution providers, explore commercial demonstrations, and leverage modern data platforms to assess evolving capabilities.

This is crucial in the AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) space. Tools that didn’t exist five years ago—like contract risk scoring, automated obligation tracking, or real-time clause deviation detection—are now baseline features. 

Yet RFPs continue to be issued that don’t encompass any of these features, based, as they are, on conservative parameters that focus more on averting risk than seizing digital opportunity.  Now, FAR Part 10’s rewrite empowers buyers to ask better questions and identify transformative tech earlier in the cycle.

Executive Order 14275: Institutionalizing Pragmatism in Procurement

The Executive Order underscores this shift with a bold mandate: reduce procedural drag and prioritize outcomes. It urges agencies to shorten acquisition timelines, eliminate low-value documentation, and embrace flexible pathways like modular contracting and OTAs. The subtext is clear: speed, innovation, and collaboration matter.

For AI vendors and federal contractors alike, this creates a friendlier environment for engagement and experimentation. It enables faster piloting of intelligent tools—whether it’s using AI to monitor subcontractor compliance in real-time or surfacing funding obligation risks before they derail performance.

AI Is Ready—It’s the Procurement Process That Needs to Catch Up

AI today is not some speculative frontier—it’s operational, measurable, and proven. In commercial sectors, AI-powered CLM has cut contract cycle times by 30–50%, flagged millions in missed entitlements, and transformed post-award governance from a passive task to a proactive advantage.

That kind of insight used to take days of manual work—it now takes seconds. 

In one recent case, a major government contractor in the systems intergradation space was able turn requests for data from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the same day it was requested thanks to its centralized and intelligent contract repository; doing so without this technology, the project lead says, would have simply been impossible. In an era of heightened scrutiny around government spending, agencies have no choice but to modernize their access to critical contract information.

And AI has only accelerated since the introduction of large language models. Icertis Copilot, for example, now allows contracting professionals to query their contract repository using plain English: “Show me all contracts with escalation clauses that were triggered last year.” That kind of insight used to take days of manual work—it now takes seconds.

What This Means for Federal Acquisition Teams

Rewriting rules on market research and EO 14275 open the door to a better way of working—where market research is continuous, stakeholder engagement is rich, and AI is not an afterthought, but a foundational asset.

To make the most of this moment, acquisition and program leaders should:

• Pilot New Approaches: Understand commercial solutions and consider using OTAs to test AI-enabled solutions
• Break Down Silos: Bring legal, program, and IT teams into early-stage market research to evaluate operational, not just technical, capabilities
• Build for Outcomes: Reframe RFPs and evaluation criteria around business value, not just technical compliance
• Focus on Interoperability: Prioritize solutions that integrate with financial, ERP, and e-signature systems—so data flows freely and risk is reduced

This Is Procurement’s Moonshot Moment

Together, the FAR Part 10 rewrite and the Executive Order 14275 represent more than just policy tweaks—they lay the groundwork for a fundamentally different relationship between government and industry. They recognize that innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires trusted dialogue, shared incentives, and flexible mechanisms to adapt over time.

The message to Federal Agency and Industry leaders is simple: lean into these reforms. Use them as a catalyst to reimagine how you build, acquire, and manage technology. Engage with one another early and often. Pilot solutions in low-risk environments. And demand that procurement outcomes reflect the speed and sophistication your missions require.

The Federal government is the world’s largest buyer. With smarter tools and smarter policies, it can also be the most innovative.