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ClosedFind a Tender · UK4
BuyerDepartment for Science, Innovation & Technology
StatusClosed
Deadline12 Sept 2025
Value£0
Published18 Aug 2025

What is being bought

The UK government prioritises leveraging emerging technologies like AI to drive innovation in public services, as outlined in the AI Opportunities Action Plan's "Scan, Pilot, Scale" framework. GDS are looking to appoint suitable organisations to support the development and piloting of an agentic-AI-powered virtual companion, GOV.UK Companion, integrated with the GOV.UK App to provide tailored guidance to users for major life events, with an initial focus on the “(re)entering the workforce” life event.

Categories

Information technology services 72222300

Lot details

Lot 1

No lot description published.

Statusactive
Value£0
Contract periodFrom 1 Oct 2025 to 1 Oct 2026
SME suitabilitySuitable for SMEs

What is included

ItemCategoryQuantity
1Information technology servicesNot published

Comparable-procurement analytics

Benchmarked against retained Find a Tender procedures with CPV division 72. The category anchor is Information technology services (72222300); this is a deliberately broad market comparator. The comparison is shown at several levels rather than pretending one company or region is always the best benchmark.

Comparison setProceduresReported bids per procedureNamed award suppliersPrice evidence
Market: CPV division 724,4541 median · 11.5 average (1,519 of 4,454 with a bid count)1.7 average (1,764 of 4,454 with named award suppliers)Not published
Same buyer18Not publishedNot publishedNot published

“Reported bids” is an official aggregate, sometimes reported per lot; it is the closest available competition measure. “Named award suppliers” are winners, not all applicants.

Price-outcome signal

Not enough comparable procedures currently publish both a GBP tender value and a usable lowest-valid-bid value to calculate a responsible price-reduction benchmark. Tenderline deliberately does not infer a saving from named award suppliers or from missing award values.

Procurement strategy & market signals

Framework agreementNot published
Dynamic purchasing systemNot published
Competitive procurementNot published
Recurring requirementNot published
Procurement method rationaleNot published
Rationale classificationsNot published
Special regimeNot published
Covered byNot published
Submission policyallowed
Selection criteriaNot published
Risk detailsNot published

Planning & early market engagement

BudgetNot published
No-engagement rationaleNot published
Planning documents0
Planning milestones0

No planning milestones published.

Related procurements

No linked framework, prior procurement or reprocurement published.

Documents & submission route

Source data inventory

Diagnostic view. “Not published” means this current release does not provide a value.

OCIDocds-h6vhtk-04f85e
Latest release ID049633-2025
Latest release timestampMon Aug 18 2025 15:53:59 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Sourcefind-a-tender
Official notice URLhttps://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/049633-2025
Tender statusactive
Procurement methodopen
Procurement method detailsBelow threshold - open competition
Main procurement categoryservices
Above thresholdNo
Legal basis2023/54
Tender period: startNot published
Tender period: end2025-09-12T12:00:00+01:00
Expression of interest deadlineNot published
Enquiry deadline2025-09-04T17:00:00+01:00
Award period: startNot published
Award period: endNot published
Submission method detailshttps://beisgroup.ukp.app.jaggaer.com/esop/ogc-host/public/beisgroup/web/login.jst?VISITORID=619d5bd8-4497-46b1-8857-acf167707cd7&_ncp=1753451617666.2033977-1
Submission languagesNot published
Electronic catalogue policyNot published
Total tender value£0
Tender lots in source1
Tender items in source1
Tender documents in source1
Awards in latest release0
Contracts in latest release0
Parties in latest release1

Notice history

DateEventReference
18 Aug 2025tender049633-2025
25 Mar 2025planning011096-2025

All source data

Unmodified official OCDS data retained by Tenderline for this procurement process.

Complete current OCDS release JSON
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Complete JSON history (2 releases)
18 Aug 2025 · 049633-2025 · tender
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25 Mar 2025 · 011096-2025 · planning
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    "title": "National AI Tender for frontier AI companies to support agentic AI powered GOV.UK Chat - Pre Market Engagement",
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    "description": "The Department for Science Innovation and Technology (“DSIT”) is committed to leveraging frontier Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) technologies to transform how citizens interact with government services. Our vision is for a fully integrated, AI-powered, personalised GOV.UK experience for citizens. \nDSIT intends to encourage frontier AI companies to collaborate with us in exploring the art of the possible, from enhancing our existing GOV.UK services to developing proofs-of-concept showcasing advanced AI agent capabilities adapted for the public sector context. \nThe “National AI Tender” approach follows the 'Scan, Pilot, Scale' framework outlined in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, with a goal of culminating in national-level procurements to deliver a unified, citizen-centric digital government platform powered by cutting-edge AI solutions. The tender will follow a phased engagement with clear go/no-go gates within and between each stage. \nThe Scan phase has comprised of two-way partnerships with AI vendors to understand current agentic AI technology capabilities as well as future developments. In parallel, the GOV.UK App team has conducted user research into personalised guides, exploring how to reduce complexity for users navigating government services and tasks across departmental boundaries by recognising the nuances of individual life situations and experiences. \nThe Pilot phase, in 2025/26, will focus on testing the value, technical feasibility and deliverability of using Agentic AI powered system for key life transitions such as education pathways, apprenticeship opportunities, and career guidance for 16-34 year old citizens. It aims to showcase AI agents that can provide personalized information, intelligent routing, action taking, and end-to-end support while seamlessly integrating with existing government digital services. \nThe Scale phase, intended for 2026/27, will focus on rolling out a fully integrated, agentic AI powered, GOV.UK Chat service to all user groups. This is with the ambition of offering a unified, national-level service. The provision of this scaled tender will be dependent on the use-case being proved valuable, feasible and deliverable across a series of stage-gates and has been deliberately kept flexible to integrate the learnings of the pilot phase. \nThe intention for this preliminary market engagement exercise is to bring awareness on this programme of work and invite leading frontier agentic AI capability providers to engage with DSIT on creating an AI-powered, personalised GOV.UK experience for citizens. \nAs one of the first uses of National AI Tenders and competitive flexible procedures under the Procurement Act 2023, DSIT will be undergoing a test-and-learn process for the procurement. Throughout this process, DSIT are fully committed to fostering a deep partnership between government and the private sector to co-create the future of digital public services \nWe will be encouraging organisations who are developing frontier agentic AI capabilities with their own bespoke Large Language Models (“LLMs”) to participate in the exercise. \nIn respect to initial tenders in the Pilot Phase, we are highlighting that this early engagement would not be relevant for organisations, unless in partnership with another bidder, in the following areas:  \nAI Consultancies \nAI Digital Services  \nAI Deployment  \nAI Integration  \nAI Licencing \nFuture procurements in the Pilot and Scale phase may be relevant to these organisations and DSIT intends to collaborate closely with the AI ecosystem. \n*** This is early market engagement for a potential opportunity. The Department is not obligated to run a procurement following this activity and is not liable for any costs associated with participating in this early engagement. ***",
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      }
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}