Buying AI
Tips and tools for public
procurement
This guidance offers practical and hands-on tips to get the best results from your AI purchases.
Developed with public sector procurement, project, and technology teams, it builds on the insights of over 50 public sector practitioners and experts.
The guidance is designed to help you no matter where you are on your AI procurement journey. Each piece of content can stand alone. You are welcome to review this guidance from top to bottom, or jump around.
We provide actionable, plain-language information to help you get started with what’s essential when buying AI. We hope this resource will help you filter out what you really need to know from the noise and provide procurement, project, and technology teams with a shared language and vision for working together!
Get startedProcurement pathways chart
Off the shelf
Commercially available tools over/under threshold (such as content creation, basic analytics, email assistance, and basic chatbot interactions)
Mature AI systems with known applications (such as traffic flow optimization, document processing at scale, or permit processing)
Cloud-based AI platforms for enterprise digital transformation (e.g., collaboration, knowledge management, analytics)
Strategic, complex AI solutions for newer use cases where outcomes matter (such as policy impact modelling, dynamic benefits optimization, or real-time emergency response systems)
Pilot AI solutions for emergent/experimental use cases (such as for smart infrastructure or predictive maintenance or public engagement platforms)
Pre-built AI applications and tools
Enterprise-grade AI models with API integration
Cloud-based AI services and platforms
ML models, custom architectures, specialized training
Pre-trained models with custom fine-tuning capabilities