AI Acceptance – Government and GovCons

For government contractors, maintaining compliance is non-negotiable—and with the rise of new technology comes risk. AI may be everywhere, but it still sparks hesitation. Is it allowed? Is it risky? Can it actually help win new business?

Those concerns are understandable. But the best way to evaluate AI’s role in GovCon isn’t speculation—it’s by looking at what the government itself is doing.

Based on how last year unfolded, it’s clear that AI is no longer a fringe experiment or asci-fi buzzword. Its benefits are real, adoption is accelerating, and the U.S. government is not sitting on the sidelines. In fact, it’s leaning in.

Let’s look at the signals—policies, agreements, and adoption—that show how serious the government is about AI, and what those signals mean for small and mid-sized government contractors.

The Government Isn’t Just Accepting AI — It’s Enabling It

In 2025, a series of agreements and product releases made the future of AI adoption unmistakable. The government isn’t just permitting AI—it’s actively removing barriers to adoption.

Strong and the most apparent signals:

• GSA OneGov AI Agreements – GSA launched OneGov to eliminate procurement friction and make enterprise AI tools broadly available to agencies under standardized, low-cost terms.
  
  
• ChatGPT Enterprise, Government-Wide – Through a GSA agreement, ChatGPT Enterprise became available across the federal executive branch, with explicit data privacy protections and no use of government data for model training.
  
  
• Claude for Government – GSA also established a OneGov agreement with Anthropic, extending access to Claude for Government and Enterprise across executive, legislative, and judicial agencies.
  
  
• AI Vendors on the GSA MAS– OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are now available via the Multiple Award Schedule, signaling formal approval for agencies to procure AI without custom contracts.
• DoD Engagement with OpenAI – The Department of Defense awarded OpenAI a contract (reportedly up to $200M) to develop AI capabilities for national security and enterprise use.

Together, these moves show that AI is no longer experimentalfrom the government’s perspective—it’s being standardized and scaled.

At the same time, AI adoption is still early. Today’s leading tools are powerful but largely general-purpose, not designed specifically for GovCon capture or proposal workflows. For many GovCons, that gap creates uncertainty around both risk and return.

What This Means for Contractors

While the government is clearly leaning into AI, that doesn’t mean contractors should adopt AI for AI’s sake. The priority is building an AI strategy that directly support show you win government business.

That starts with choosing solutions designed for GovConworkflows—where compliance, explainability, and repeatability matter just asmuch as speed.

A practical place to start:

• Identify your biggest bottlenecks: Focus on the areas you feel could be improved– finding new opportunities, writing proposals, or managing opportunities and relationships.
• Look beyond ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, etc.: Look for vendors that understand the GovCon space and offer tools built around real workflows—not prompt-heavy or black-box AI that produces outputs you can’t easily explain, review, or refine.
• Understand how your data is handled: Trust is foundational. Contractors should know how their data is used, where it’s stored, and what safeguards ensure security and compliance. Transparency isn’t optional.

One more critical consideration: the vendor behind the AI.With heavy investment and a flood of “AI-first” tools entering the market, notevery vendor will last. When evaluating solutions, look beyond funding andhype. How long has the company been in business? Do they have experiencesupporting GovCons through government shutdowns, market shifts, and compliancechanges?

AI may be new to GovCon—but software for GovCon isn’t.Vendors with experience will provide better support and in the long run abetter solution.

Looking Ahead

For government contractors, the question is no longerwhether AI belongs in the GovCon ecosystem, but how it should be appliedresponsibly and effectively.

This article is the first step in that conversation. In thecoming pieces, we’ll take a closer look at how AI can support each stage ofwinning government business, from opportunity identification and pipelinemanagement to capture, proposal development, and beyond.

Along the way, we’ll examine specific capabilities,real-world tools, and practical considerations contractors should evaluatebefore adopting AI into their workflows.