Ask Sage protests a third OneGov AI agreement
Gettyimages.com/Alex Cristi
By
Nick Wakeman
The company is widening the scope of its argument that the products in question do not meet security requirements and the agreements violate other requirements.
Ask Sage, the artificial intelligence company challenging the deep discounts the General Services Administration has signed with AI companies, is adding another one of those pacts to its objections.
The company filed two protests Aug. 15 with the Government Accountability Office challenging the legality of the $1-per-year agreements GSA has signed with OpenAI and Anthropic.
GSA set up those agreements under OneGov, its initiative to centralize software buys.
On Thursday, GSA announced a new pact with Google for the company's Gemini for Government offering that is also part of OneGov. But instead of a dollar, GSA is offering Gemini for 47 cents per year.
Ask Sage has since filed a third protest to challenge the Google pact as well. The new protest has not appeared on the Government Accountability Office's docket, but Ask Sage CEO Chaillan confirmed the challenge late Friday.
Ask Sage's protest against the Google agreement raises the same basic issues as those regarding the OpenAI and Anthropic pact:
- Not meeting federal security requirements
- Violation of commercial item pricing requirements
- Circumvention of competition requirements
- Potential for vendor-lock in
- Inconsistencies with GSA’s OneGov strategy
In the GAO protests, Ask Sage lists several security requirements that the AI products offered under the agreements do not meet. Those include not having a FedRAMP certification and not meeting International Traffic in Arms Regulations. They also do not meet requirements to handle controlled unclassified information.
Chaillan said that while the agreements make good headlines, they “can’t be used in any meaningful way."