How AI assistants can support public procurement

Local government procurement teams are gaining new ways to carry out parts of their work through the AI assistants they already use. New connectors from Civic Marketplace allow buyers to search cooperative contracts, analyse procurement documents, identify suppliers and submit quote requests through ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot.

The connectors give AI assistants access to Civic Marketplace’s live contract and supplier data without users having to move between separate procurement systems. Access remains governed by existing user permissions, actions that create a commitment require explicit confirmation, and activity is recorded in an audit trail.

Al Hleileh, Co-Founder and CEO of Civic Marketplace

Al Hleileh, Co-Founder and CEO of Civic Marketplace, expects much of the discovery and preparation layer – including vendor discovery, market research, cost evaluation and compliance checks – to move into AI assistants, while evaluation and award remain with procurement professionals.

Hleileh argues that reducing these steps could also help smaller procurement teams operate with fewer resources.

“Every step we remove between a public buyer and a qualified supplier closes that gap a little. Putting Civic Marketplace inside the assistant they already have open removes several steps at once,” he said.

This sits within a broader shift identified by recent City Innovation Network research, which found that cities were increasingly using cooperative purchasing, shared market intelligence and procurement platforms to reduce duplicated effort and improve technology discovery before formal procurement begins.

Connecting these systems directly to general-purpose AI assistants represents a further step – moving AI from supporting individual procurement tasks towards becoming an interface through which parts of the procurement process itself are carried out.

As AI assistants become a “front door” to procurement, Hleileh flags an accompanying governance consideration: cities will need to understand not only how the AI itself operates, but why particular contracts, suppliers and procurement options are being surfaced to users.

Photo by Noah Fetz on Unsplash