AI explained: AI and government contracts

Regulatory and investigations partner Kendra Perkins Norwood invites former U.S. GSA Associate Administrator Krystal Brumfield to discuss how the federal government is gaining an understanding of AI’s uses in procurement. They also explain how the General Services Administration and other federal agencies are using AI to streamline and safeguard the contract award process. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Hello and welcome to Tech Law Talks, a podcast brought to you by Reed Smith's Emerging Technologies Group. In each episode of this podcast, we will discuss cutting-edge issues on technology, data, and the law. We will provide practical observations on a wide variety of technology and data topics to give you quick and actionable tips to address the issues you are dealing with every day.  Kendra: Hello, welcome to Tech Law Talks, a new Reed Smith podcast series on artificial intelligence or AI, as it's commonly called. I am Kendra Norwood, a partner in Reed Smith's Global Regulatory and Investigations Practice Group. I'm based in Washington, D.C., and my specific practice area is government contracts. Through the Tech Law Talk series, we will be exploring the key challenges and opportunities that are presented within the rapidly evolving AI landscape, and today we will focus on AI in government contracts. For today's episode, we are very fortunate to have a special guest joining us, Krystal Brumfield, who for the past three and a half years has served as the Associate Administrator for the Office of Government-Wide Policy at the General Services Administration, or GSA. Now, for those who may not be familiar with GSA, it's an independent agency of the U.S. Government that provides centralized procurement and shared services for the federal government, managing a nationwide real estate portfolio, overseeing over $100 billion in federal government contracts for goods and services purchased by the government, and for delivering technology services to millions of both government and public users across dozens of federal agencies. So when we decided to do a podcast on AI and government contracting, Krystal immediately came to mind as the perfect podcast guest to discuss that topic, and I am so glad to have her here today. So welcome, Krystal. Krystal: Thank you, Kendra. Excited to be here with you and Reed Smith. Kendra: Wonderful. So if you could start off with a brief introduction of yourself and your role and responsibilities at GSA, that would be great to set the stage for our discussion today. Krystal: Sure. So I served as the Associate Administrator for Government-Wide Policy in January 2020 through May 2023. In that role, I was designated as the Regulatory Policy Officer, the chief acquisition officer. I also served as the chair of the agency Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management Executive Committee. And as the associate administrator of OGP, it's what we call government-wide policy for short, I oversaw the drafting and promulgation of the federal acquisition regulation, also known as the FOG. IT policy, as well as the Federal Acquisition Institute, which is responsible for training and educating the 20,000 plus federal acquisition professionals across the federal government. Kendra: Oh, wow. That is such an impressive background and just some really big responsibilities. And again, I think you're the perfect guest to have here today to talk about this topic. So again, thank you so much for being here. So I guess I'd like to start by framing our discussion a bit. I tend to think about AI in government contracting in two ways. So first, I think about how the government uses AI to support the federal acquisition process, and that's from contract formation to contract administration, and ultimately through contract closeout, and using AI in that way to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently. And the second way I think about government contracts AI is the approach used by the government to purchase AI-driven tools